This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East 9780812206401

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This Noble House

Jewish Culture and Contexts Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania David B. Ruderman, Series Editor Advisory Board Richard I. Cohen Moshe Idel Alan Mintz Deborah Dash Moore Ada Rapoport-Albert Michael D. Swartz A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

This Noble House Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East

Ar nold E. Fr ank lin

University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

Copyright © 2013 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Franklin, Arnold E., 1971– This noble house : Jewish descendants of King David in the ­medieval Islamic East / Arnold E. Franklin. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Jewish culture and contexts) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4409-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. David, King of Israel—Family. 2. Jews—Nobility. 3. Jews— Genealogy—History. 4. Judaism—Relations—Islam. 5. Islam— Relations—Judaism. 6. Islamic Empire—Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series: Jewish culture and contexts. CS28.F73 2012 296.3'97—dc23 2012002586

People are more akin to their contemporaries than to their ancestors. —Ibn Qutayba (d. 889), ʿUyūn al-akhbār, 2:1

But one should never dismiss as nonsense things that other people took seriously. —S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 5:260

Contents

A Note on Transliteration, Names, and Dates  ix Preface xi Introduction  1 Chapter 1. “Sharīf of the Jewish Nation”: Reconceptualizing the House of David in the Islamic East  34 Chapter 2. “The Truth of the Pedigree”: Documenting Origins and the Public Performance of Lineage  68 Chapter 3. Ancestry as Authority: Lineage and Power in Near Eastern Jewish Society  107 Chapter 4. “Designated in the Past and for the Future”: Davidic Dynasts and Medieval Messianic Anticipation  131 Chapter 5. “The Sharīf of Every People Is Well-Born”: Genealogy and the Legitimization of Minority Culture  163 Conclusion  179 Appendix A. Halper 462: Transcription and Translation  185 Appendix B. A Tentative List of Davidic Dynasts Datable between ca. 950 and ca. 1450  189



viii Contents

Abbreviations  207 Notes  209 Bibliography  253 Index of Manuscript Sources  277 Index  285 Acknowledgments  295

A N o t e o n Tr a n s l i t e r a t i o n , N a m e s , a n d D a t e s

The transliteration of Hebrew and Aramaic terms follows the system used in the Association for Jewish Studies Review with the following exceptions: “ṭ” is used for ṭet, “ṣ” for ṣade, and “q” for qof. Segol, sheva, and ṣere are all represented by “e,” while ṣere followed by yod marking the construct state is represented by “ei.” Other long vowels are not indicated, nor are final silent alef and he (thus: nasi and yeshiva). Arabic words have been transliterated in accordance with the system used by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. For common biblical names, such as Judah, David, and Daniel, the familiar English rendering has been retained, while less familiar Hebrew and Aramaic names, as well as those in Arabic, have been transliterated phonetically according to the systems above. In cases where a distinctive form of a name is commonly used in the scholarly literature (such as Maimonides and Ibn Daud), I have generally used that form. Familiar Arabic place names and dynasties (such as Baghdad and Abbasids) are given in the usual English form as well. Dates follow the conventional Western system.

Preface

In reviewing the period of the ancient Israelite monarchy, the tenth-century Judeo-Arabic chronicle Kitāb al-taʾrīkh (Book of Chronology) briefly narrates the story of Elijah’s triumph at Mount Carmel over the prophets of Baal: At the end of the third year [of King Ahab’s reign] all the people of Israel gathered at Mount Carmel, and provoked the idolaters: “Can your god make fire from the heavens descend to consume this sacrifice?” So they cried out to the idol the whole day and made themselves weary, yet nothing happened. Then Elijah, peace upon him, prayed to his God, and the Lord, may He be blessed and exalted, sent fire from the heavens to the sacrifice, which had been soaked with twelve jugs of water. And [the fire] consumed it, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water. The people then fell to the ground prostrate before the Lord and cried out: “There is no god but the Lord [lā ilāha illā Allāh]!” 1 Kitāb al-taʾrīkh’s compressed style, its tendency to reduce historical periods to lists of leaders and important figures, and its often derivative nature might seem to justify its relative neglect by modern historians of Jewish society in the Islamic world. Yet for all of its aesthetic shortcomings, it nonetheless presents an important witness to the way the Jewish past was understood and the way familiar narratives were accordingly reformulated during the Middle Ages. Indeed, the passage quoted above offers a striking illustration of the processes by means of which Jews in Arabic-speaking lands reinterpreted their historical and religious traditions using categories of analysis and modes of expression embedded in the Arabic linguistic medium they shared with their Muslim neighbors. Thus, while in many respects Kitāb al-taʾrīkh hews closely to the account of the confrontation on Mount Carmel as it is narrated in 1 Kings 18, in rendering the Israelites’ reaction to the appearance of the divine fire it deviates from the biblical text to dramatic effect. In the biblical story, the assembled



xii Preface

masses proclaim their devotion to the Lord with the words “The Lord is God, the Lord is God [Adonay hu ha-Elohim Adonay hu ha-Elohim]!” Kitāb altaʾrīkh does not translate this phrase literally, but instead offers an approximation of its meaning using the tahlīl, a qurʾānic phrase that is also the unmistakable first line of the Islamic confession of faith and part of the traditional call to prayer, frequently given in English as “There is no god but Allāh.” While the phrase lā ilāha illā Allāh certainly conveys the general sense of the Israelites’ cry, other, more literal options were available to the author of Kitāb al-taʾrīkh. A medieval Judeo-Arabic translation of the Book of Kings, for example, scrupulously adheres to the Hebrew original when it renders the Israelites’ words as Allāh hūwa al-ilāh, Allāh hūwa al-ilāh (“the Lord is God, the Lord is God”).2 And this more precise wording is also used in the popular and influential Judeo-Arabic tafsīr of Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī (d. 942) to translate Deuteronomy 4:35 and 4:39, verses that contain the very same Hebrew phrase uttered by the Israelites at Mount Carmel.3 There is, in fact, good reason to believe that medieval Jews consciously associated the Arabic words lā ilāha illā Allāh with the Islamic religious tradition. Consider, for example, Bustān al-ʿuqūl (The Garden of Intellects), a theological work by the twelfth-century Yemenite scholar Nethanel Ibn Fayyūmī. The second chapter of Nethanel’s work discusses at some length the significance of the numbers seven and twelve, citing in support of their esoteric meaning evidence from both the natural world and a variety of Jewish religious sources. But Nethanel also adduces proof for their importance from the formula lā ilāha illā Allāh, noting that the phrase is made up of a total of twelve letters that in Arabic orthography divide into seven discrete sets. Nethanel is explicit, moreover, about the fact that he is drawing support from an Islamic source, explaining that he has introduced this particular prooftext “in order to demonstrate the similarity between us and them with regard to the numbers seven and twelve.”4 How, then, are we to understand Kitāb al-taʾrīkh’s preference for the formula lā ilāha illā Allāh given both its apparent identification with the religious tradition of Islam and the availability of a more literal and neutral alternative? In having the Israelites on Mount Carmel effectively recite the first portion of the shahāda, the author of Kitāb al-taʾrīkh exposes the complex cultural situation of the Jews living in the medieval Islamic world. On one level, the scene reflects the extent to which Jews could accommodate themselves to, and even identify with, overtly religious elements in the discourse of the dominant culture. And in doing so Jews were apparently not alone. According to the anonymous author of a ninth-century work summarizing the principles of

Preface xiii

Melkite theology, “When we, the assembly of Christians, say lā ilāha illā Allāh, we mean by it a living God, endowed with a living Spirit which enlivens and lets die, an intellect which gives determination to whatever it wills, and a Word by means of which all being comes to be.”5 Certain Arabic-speaking Christians were, in other words, evidently prepared to make use of the tahlīl formulation for their own particular religious needs as well. On another level, however, the scene can be read as an expression of competitiveness toward the dominant society and its perceived triumphalism, an attempt to reassert the primacy of Judaism as the ultimate source of a monotheistic belief that was later adopted by Islam. In this regard we would do well to remember that Kitāb al-taʾrīkh is, by design, a chronographic work, and the clarification of sequence its very raison d’être. And such a concern with Jewish precedence is in fact made explicit in Nethanel Ibn Fayyūmī’s discussion of the shahāda mentioned earlier. After expounding the hidden meaning of the letters of the Islamic confession of faith, Nethanel tellingly adds that “the principles of this come from us, for we confessed [nashhadu] God’s unity in this manner before them, as we can see from the words of David, ‘For, who is a god but the Lord, and who is a rock but our God?’ [Psalm 18:32].”6 Such claims of Jewish precedence were ubiquitous in the Middle Ages, serving as one of the standard arguments by means of which Jews were able to make sense of the evident cultural affinities that existed between them and their Muslim neighbors. Philosophers, mystics, and poets alike embraced such a perspective, and in so doing justified potentially problematic cultural pursuits as legitimately, authentically, and originally Jewish.7 A biblical story about the triumph of the Israelites’ faith over idolatrous unbelief thus arguably becomes in Kitāb al-taʾrīkh a narrative subtly vindicating Judaism in its rivalry with Islam, a vindication made that much more complex by its conspicuous reliance on a formulation drawn from the text of the Qurʾān. The process reflected in the passage from Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, whereby medieval Jewish tradition was shaped by formulations rooted in the religious discourse of Islam, lies at the very heart of the present study. The projection of the shahāda onto the canvas of the biblical past, with all the ambivalence inherent in such a maneuver, presents a concise and concrete instance of the kind of cultural reconfiguration with which the present work is concerned. In its interpretive translation of the words of the Israelites, Kitāb al-taʾrīkh provides a suggestive model for thinking about the way other, more amorphous elements of the Jewish tradition were similarly translated in order to conform to the normative values and cultural dictates of medieval Arab-Islamic society.



xiv Preface

This study focuses on the reimagining of one such element of the Jewish tradition. A close analysis of a little examined social phenomenon, it explores how the meaningfulness of King David’s family was understood and articulated in the cultural orbit of Islam between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. David’s line has occupied a central place in Jewish reflections on both the past and the future from time immemorial. In Arabic-speaking lands during the Middle Ages, however, the House of David enjoyed a particular and unique status in Jewish society—a prominence reflected not only in the importance attached to the notion of the royal family, but in the concern shown to those considered to be its living members as well. This work explores that status, looking both at the cultural roots that nurtured it as well as at the various social contexts in which it flourished. It argues that, like the story of the Israelites’ declaration on Mount Carmel, Jewish thinking about the Davidic line was profoundly transformed by the medieval encounter with Arab-Islamic civilization, in particular the value that it placed on noble ancestry. Jewish veneration of the family of King David, I argue, like the image of the ancient Israelites reciting the beginning of the shahāda, was the result of a dynamic process of cultural translation. And as it happens, in the course of our investigation we will again return to Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, for in addition to summarizing and recasting biblical history it turns out that that text also preserves an important witness to medieval Jewish society’s deep interest in the Davidic line. The genesis for this book came from a brief but characteristically prescient observation by S. D. Goitein, the towering figure of Geniza research in the second half of the twentieth century. Discussing the numerous Jewish claimants to Davidic ancestry who are mentioned in documents from the Geniza, Goitein succinctly proposed that “their role may be compared with that of the Alids, or descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, in the contemporary Muslim society.”8 He offered no evidence to back up his intuitive suggestion, nor did he or any of his students elaborate upon it in subsequent publications. Yet he was surely on to something deserving of further investigation. The present work is in many ways an extended development of Goitein’s insightful but largely overlooked observation. As we shall see, both Jews and Muslims did indeed come to view the family of King David as an analogue to the family of Muḥammad. In what follows we will explore the processes that were involved in this reconceptualization of the Jewish royal line as well as its ramifications for the Jewish community. But our inquiry will also lead us beyond the narrow confines of the House of David, for, as we shall see, changes in the way the Davidic family was perceived ultimately reflect transformations in Jewish society’s valorization of

Preface xv

lineage more broadly. Jews, like other non-Arab populations in the Near East and North Africa, embraced the value that Arab-Islamic society placed on noble lineage, and as a result turned with renewed interest to the genealogical traditions that connected them and their forebears to the biblical past. The valorization of Davidic ancestry in the medieval Jewish community thus emerges as the most salient instance of what was in fact a more comprehensive concern with genealogy. Pursuing Goitein’s suggestion, then, we arrive at a largely unexplored realm of the dynamic interplay between Judaism and Islam, what Goitein himself referred to in another connection as the “Jewish-Arab symbiosis” of the Middle Ages.9

This Noble House

Introduction

In the second half of the twelfth century, almost a hundred years before Marco Polo’s celebrated exploration of the Silk Route, two Jewish travelers made their ways, separately, to the city of Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, the first and more famous of the two, arrived in about the year 1168 after setting out from northern Spain and traveling through southern France, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, Palestine, and Syria. Leaving Baghdad, Benjamin would continue on to the city of Basra and the Persian Gulf, visit Egypt, and eventually make his way back to Spain in 1173. Two or three years later, Petaḥya ben Jacob of Regensburg, unaware of his predecessor’s journey, also visited the Abbasid capital in the midst of a similarly long and arduous circuit that took him east from Prague, through parts of Poland and Russia, south across the Crimea and Armenia, into Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, and finally back to Bohemia and Regensburg.1 The two came from very different backgrounds. Though Benjamin hailed from the Christian Iberian crown of Navarre, he was in many ways a direct heir to the cultural legacy of Muslim-dominated al-Andalus.2 What few details we know of Petaḥya’s origins, on the other hand, suggest that he came from a family steeped in the unique intellectual currents and religious patterns that were then coming to dominate northern European Jewry. His brother Isaac, we know, studied in France with the important twelfth-­century Tosafist Jacob ben Meir and was among the first generation of scholars to develop the dialectic method of talmudic analysis in Bohemia.3 Despite these differences, though, the two were struck by many of the same things. Each of the travelers left behind a record of his remarkable wanderings, and in both accounts the city of Baghdad looms large, taking up nearly a tenth of Benjamin’s Sefer ha-massaʿot (Book of Travels) and roughly the same proportion of Petaḥya’s itinerary. Though the city was beginning to show signs of decline by the end of the twelfth century, there was still much there to dazzle the eyes of a weary traveler. Muslim visitors to Baghdad in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were impressed, among other things, by the sheer size of the city, by its bustling markets, and by the many



2 Introduction

schools, mosques, and richly decorated bathhouses that could be found in practically every neighborhood.4 Religious differences notwithstanding, Benjamin and Petaḥya had more or less the same reaction. Benjamin’s narrative reveals that like other twelfth-century visitors he was captivated by the city, and at the center of his account is a glowing depiction of the Abbasid caliph, whom he likens to the pope since “all of the kings of Islam obey him.” Repeatedly noting the caliph’s distinguished descent from Muḥammad, Benjamin also stresses his moral and ethical virtues. “He will not partake of anything unless he has earned it by the work of his own hand,” Benjamin reports; moreover, “he is truthful and trusty, speaking peace to all men.” Most significantly, Benjamin describes the caliph as a ruler who is respectful toward the Jews of his domain and their religion. “He is kind unto Israel and many belonging to the people of Israel are among his attendants. He knows all languages and is well-versed in the law of Israel. He reads and writes the Holy Language.” In sum, Benjamin writes, “the caliph is a righteous man [ish ḥasid] and all his actions are for good.”5 Benjamin was also moved by Baghdad’s architecture. He describes the caliphal palace, located in the eastern portion of the city, with discernible awe. Comprising “great buildings made of marble with columns of silver and gold,” the massive complex encompassed a lake fed by the Tigris and “a great forest with all manner of trees . . .  and animals.” In the western half of the city Benjamin was taken with one of Baghdad’s celebrated hospitals, perhaps the bīmāristān founded by the Buwayhid prince ʿAḍūd al-Dawla in the late tenth century. According to Benjamin’s reckoning, it boasted a staff of some sixty physicians and supported a sanitarium to care for the insane. With apparent admiration he notes that “every sick man who comes is maintained at the expense of the caliph.”6 Petaḥya of Regensburg, on the other hand, has relatively little to say about the topography of Baghdad, its magnificent edifices, or its Muslim inhabitants. And though he mentions the city’s expansive size and briefly comments on its newly restored walls, “standing a hundred cubits high . . .  made of polished, ornamented copper,” he was most interested in Baghdad’s Jews, whose numbers he estimated at about 1000, a far more likely estimate than Benjamin’s figure of 40,000.7 Jews appear to have inhabited several sections of the city. Sources from the mid- and late tenth century suggest that the hub of Jewish communal life was located in the ʿAtīqa section of Baghdad—an area situated west of the Tigris between Tāq al-ḥarrānī and Bāb al-shaʿīr—but there are indications that Jews could be found in other areas of the city as well.8

Introduction 3

Petaḥya notes with keen interest the local Jews’ impressive mastery of the biblical text. “Even those who are ignorant,” he observes, “know all twentyfour books according to their proper vocalization, the rules of grammar, and the traditions concerning pronunciation and spelling.” He also comments admiringly on their concern for the modesty of their women. “None there looks upon any woman,” he writes. “Nor does anyone enter the house of his friend out of concern that he might see his wife improperly.”9 The peaceful relations that existed between the Jews of Baghdad and their Muslim neighbors drew Petaḥya’s attention as well. Using the region’s biblical name as medieval Jews were wont to do for many areas of the Near East, Petaḥya concludes: “There is great peace for the Jews in the land of Babylon, and they do not experience exile [galut] at all.”10 In both travelers’ romanticized visions of the city—and for that matter, of the Islamic East more broadly—the theme of Jewish empowerment looms especially large. Both Petaḥya and Benjamin left pointedly enthusiastic descriptions of the ecumenical Jewish leaders in Baghdad. Petaḥya describes the gaʾon ­Samuel ben ʿEli, head of the yeshiva in Baghdad, with evident delight. “He is full of wisdom,” Petaḥya writes, “both in the written and the oral law, and in all the wisdom of Egypt. Nothing at all is hidden from him.” Samuel is also depicted as a captivating teacher: throngs of disciples, each one an accomplished scholar in his own right, sit at his feet, eager to imbibe his lectures.11 But to Petaḥya the gaʾon was more than a scholar; he also embodied Jewish political power. “The head of the academy,” he writes, “has about sixty servants, and they flog anyone who does not immediately execute his orders. Therefore, the people fear him. . . . And he is clothed in gold and colored garments like the king, and his palace also is hung with costly tapestries like the king’s.”12 And the same impression is conveyed in Petaḥya’s description of the extent of the gaʾon’s dominion: “In all the lands of Assyria and Damascus, in the cities of Persia and Media, as well as in the land of Babylon,” he insists, “they have no judge that has not been appointed by Rabbi Samuel, the head of the academy. It is he who gives license in every city to judge and to teach. His authority is acknowledged in all countries, and also in the land of Israel. They all respect him.”13 But Samuel ben ʿEli was not the only Iraqi leader to provide a stirring image of Jewish political might or to be worthy of comparison to the Abbasid rulers. In fact, in Petaḥya’s own words, “a higher authority” than the gaʾon was to be found in the exilarch (rosh ha-gola). Benjamin was evidently taken with the exilarch as well, devoting a long and admiring passage to him while passing over Samuel ben ʿEli with no more than a few perfunctory observations.



4 Introduction

Like the gaonate, the office of exilarch emerged from barely perceptible origins at the beginning of the Islamic period to become an important institution of centralized Jewish communal leadership in the Middle Ages.14 While it is evident that exilarchs played an important role in administering the affairs of the Jewish minority population under the Abbasid caliphs and their successors, it is frustratingly difficult to delineate the precise functions that were entrusted to them. Not only do we lack the kinds of reliable sources that might afford such a reconstruction, the authority of the exilarchate appears to have fluctuated over the course of the medieval period, in particular in relation to that exercised by the geʾonim. An idealized picture of the office, its prerogatives, and its relationship to the gaonate two centuries prior to Benjamin and Petaḥya’s arrival in Baghdad is presented in the so-called “Account of Rabbi Nathan ha-Bavli,” a tenth-century work possibly composed to pacify a Jewish audience in North Africa that was concerned about recent reports of conflict among Jewish leaders and elites in Iraq.15 According to Nathan, the exilarch, like each of the geʾonim, functioned as the exclusive head of an administrative district (reshut). Nathan locates the regions under the authority of the exilarch in the lands to the east of the Tigris, and claims that within this territory he was entitled to appoint judges and collect internal taxes. Critical to Nathan’s account is the portrayal of relations between the Iraqi geʾonim and the exilarchate as mutually respectful and collaborative, a theme that is masterfully underscored in his description of the installation ceremony for the exilarch.16 The reality, of course, was a great deal messier: boundaries between the exilarchate’s and the gaonate’s spheres of influence, geographical and otherwise, remained in flux throughout the Middle Ages, frequently generating competition and conflict. Nonetheless, a few points are fairly well established. At least in certain periods exilarchs do appear to have appointed Jewish officials in some local communities and to have collected revenues from them, although there are conflicting indications as to the extent of the area that fell under their jurisdiction. They also presided over a judicial apparatus referred to from time to time as a yeshiva. Additionally, they may also have represented the Jewish community before the Muslim authorities, though the generally held view that they were formally appointed in that capacity still remains a matter of conjecture.17 But the exilarchs’ prestige in the eyes of Benjamin, Petaḥya, and other medieval Jews did not derive merely—or even primarily—from their administrative powers or their access to the highest echelons of the Islamic state. Rather, it was based on their alleged ancestry—for the exilarchate, unlike the gaonate, was a hereditary office that was transferred among members

Introduction 5

of a dynasty that claimed descent from King David. Thus did the office enjoy a symbolic meaning for medieval Jews that transcended the particular functions exercised by it. The exilarchate was understood to be in a very real sense a living remnant of the ancient biblical monarchy, a notion that is captured in the bold assertion of Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) that “the exilarchs of Babylonia stand in place of the king.”18 It should come as little surprise, then, that medieval Jews regarded the exilarchate as a potent symbol of national survival as well as an implicit rejoinder to those who saw in the dissolution of the ancient Judean monarchy clear evidence of God’s displeasure with the Jewish people. In their narratives Benjamin and Petaḥya have left us revealing impressions of both the office of exilarch and of Daniel ben Ḥisday (d. ca. 1175), its longreigning incumbent who died shortly after Benjamin’s visit and evidently had not yet been replaced at the time of Petaḥya’s.19 Benjamin’s portrayal of the exilarch follows closely on his earlier description of the caliph and suggests a deliberate pairing of the two figures. The exilarch is described as wise, rich, and generous, and like the caliph has in his possession “hospices, gardens, and plantations.” The great synagogue of the exilarch, with its “columns of marble of various colors overlaid with silver and gold,” recalls Benjamin’s depiction of the caliphal palace. Lineage constitutes another critical point of comparison: the caliph is introduced as a member “of the family of Muḥammad,” while the exilarch has a “pedigree going back as far as David, King of Israel.” At the center of this portion of Benjamin’s narrative is a description of the visit he claims the exilarch made to the caliph’s residence every Thursday—a rather improbable occurrence, but a device that nonetheless allowed Benjamin to bring his two subjects face-to-face. Here again the exilarch’s genealogy assumes importance. The exilarch was escorted to the caliph’s palace by an entourage on horseback comprising Jews and Muslims, and as he made his way through the streets of the city, heralds would proclaim in Arabic: “Make way for our lord, the son of David [sayyidunā ibn Dāʾūd ]!”20 Benjamin emphasizes that this was the Muslims’ own appellation for the exilarch; the Jews, he says, referred to him in Hebrew as “our lord, the head of the exile.” Once inside the palace the exilarch would be seated on a special throne that stood opposite the caliph’s and that was reserved for the exilarch’s use on such visits. Benjamin concludes by explaining that the unusual display of deference toward the exilarch was in keeping with the wishes of Muḥammad himself, who recognized the exilarchs as legitimate successors to the Davidic monarchy and accordingly commanded his caliphal heirs to uphold the injunction in Genesis 49:10 that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.”21



6 Introduction

Petaḥya’s account of the exilarchate is much shorter than Benjamin’s. Yet in his brief notes Petaḥya relates a telling bit of information that brings into sharper focus the juxtaposition of the caliphal and Davidic dynasties suggested in Benjamin’s longer and more carefully crafted presentation. The caliph, he writes, had great affection for the exilarch because he “is of the seed of Muḥammad and the exilarch is of the seed of King David.”

A New Fascination with Biblical Ancestry The city of Baghdad described by Benjamin and Petaḥya is, in many respects, an imaginary landscape—a mythical place where Jews are powerful, wealthy, and pious, but more important, where they are treated with respect by their non-Jewish neighbors. In conjuring up such an idealized scene these writers offer a comforting counterpoint to the perceived conditions of Jewish life in Latin Europe. The subject of the Jews’ loss of sovereignty had become an increasingly important element in medieval polemical exchanges between Jews and non-Jews; and not infrequently these exchanges centered on the scope of the exilarch’s authority, drawing from it broader theological conclusions. In the first half of the eleventh century, the Andalusian Muslim polymath ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064) claimed to have debated the status of the exilarchate with the Jewish scholar and courtier Samuel Ibn Naghrīla (d. 1055). Ibn Naghrīla maintained that “to this day the exilarchs are descendants of David and thus the offspring of Judah, and they possess authority, kingship and rule.” While Ibn Ḥazm did not dispute the purported ancestry of the exilarchs, he insisted that they enjoyed no real authority and argued on that basis that the scriptural promise that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah” was clear evidence of the Bible’s mendaciousness.22 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Jewish theologians and exegetes worked vigorously to refute Christian arguments that began with the observable “facts” of Jewish powerlessness and degradation and, buttressed with scriptural prooftexts, went on to explain them as divine punishment for the Jews’ rejection of Jesus.23 The travel accounts of Benjamin and Petaḥya counter such arguments, though not, as did Jewish biblical scholars, by challenging Christian and Muslim readings of scripture, but rather by bringing an alternative set of visible data to bear on the question of Jewish power.24 The conditions of Jewish life in the Islamic East generally, and the stature of the exilarch in particular, thus undermined the view so succinctly expressed by the fictional Christian adversary in Joseph

Introduction 7

Qimḥi’s (d. 1170) polemical treatise Sefer ha-berit (Book of the Covenant), when he insists that the Jews lack “power and kingship, indeed [they] have lost everything.”25 And yet if the general contours of Benjamin’s and Petaḥya’s perceptions of Baghdad were shaped by the kinds of arguments that confronted Jews in eleventh-century al-Andalus and twelfth- and thirteenth-century Western Christendom, in at least one respect they accurately attest to a fascinating but underappreciated transformation that had taken place within Near Eastern Jewish society itself. Both travelers, we have noted, took an interest in the exilarch’s purported descent from King David. More important, however, they recognized in that ancestry a counterpart to the Abbasid caliphs’ claim of descent from Muḥammad.26 The equivalence of the two dynastic lines is striking, and, as it is presented by the two travelers, helps to make the case that Jews in the East were deemed worthy of honor by the dominant religious population. But their impressions also attest to a new emphasis on the value of biblical lineage that had taken hold among Eastern Jews, an emphasis itself reflective of attitudes about noble ancestry that were prevalent in the surrounding Arab-­ Islamic cultural environment. Their observations are suggestive therefore precisely because they hint at a connection between the genealogical concerns of Near Eastern Jews and the Islamic society in which they lived. Taking these observations as its point of departure, this book explores the preoccupation with biblical genealogy that characterized Jewish society in the Islamic Near East between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Focusing initially on Jewish society’s fascination with Davidic ancestry, it examines the profusion of claims to that lineage that had already begun to appear by the end of the first millennium, the attempts to chart such claims through elaborate genealogical lists, and the range of meanings that had come to be ascribed to the House of David as a whole in that period—in particular the perception, shared by Jews and Muslims alike, that the Davidic line was a counterpart to the noble family of Muḥammad, the ahl al-bayt. The coherence of such an endeavor depends, of course, on the ability to show that Jewish society did indeed undergo a perceptible change in the way it regarded Davidic ancestry, and that an intensification of ancestral claims to the biblical monarch is detectible. In Chapter 1 I undertake to establish these points in some detail. My conclusion is that by the tenth century new layers of significance as well as a new urgency were evident in the way Jewish claims of descent from King David were articulated and understood. This change in the manifestation and meaning of Davidic ancestry can be understood as the



8 Introduction

response to a variety of pressures on Jewish society, some emanating from within the community and others from without. Veneration of the Davidic family did not, of course, originate in the Islamic period. Indeed, concern with King David and his royal line can be traced back to the Hebrew Bible, and, in one form or another, has remained a more or less constant feature of Jewish society’s historical and spiritual self-perception ever since. Yet if Jews have remained loyal to the House of David throughout the ages, their reasons for doing so have not necessarily been so unvarying, nor have their ways of expressing that allegiance been so consistent. Moreover, the very persistence of Jewish preoccupation with the Davidic line can obscure the subtle ways in which its signification in fact shifted over time. The existence of the exilarchate is well attested in rabbinic sources, and its origins may go back to the third century ce. But Jews continued to develop new impressions of the dynastic office that were colored by later realities, its ancient roots notwithstanding. The present work deals not with origins, then, but with the culturally specific nuances that inflected the meaning of Davidic lineage for Jews living in the Islamic Near East. It explores how medieval Jews regarded and venerated the line of David, and seeks, in part, to situate those attitudes within a broader matrix of responses to minority status in the Islamic world. In proposing a cultural and historical context for understanding medieval Jews’ attitudes toward the Davidic dynasty, the present work accentuates the capacity for adaptation and reinterpretation that even timeless religious symbols possess. The tendency to view the Jewish Middle Ages as simply the playing out of earlier forms of Judaism fails to acknowledge the extent to which the meaning of cultural and religious constants like the Davidic line could vary even as the constants themselves endured. That Jewish society indeed came to invest the Davidic family with new significance during the Middle Ages is most readily observable in the rise in the number of claimants to that lineage during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Sources from that period make frequent mention of individuals with the Hebrew title nasi (“prince,” plural nesiʾim), a biblical designation that sig­ nified, with only rare exception, membership in the House of David. And as ­references to nesiʾim begin to multiply, a clan of Davidic dynasts, from whose ranks the exilarchs were chosen, begins to come into focus, emerging for the first time as a recognizable kinship group within medieval Jewish society, a collective ­defined entirely by its presumed descent from the biblical monarch. Thus, while the title exilarch signals appointment to an office of authority, nasi implies an ­in­herited genealogical status; and while every exilarch was a nasi, very few nesiʾim would become exilarchs. The proliferation of nesiʾim—understood in this

Introduction 9

fashion—implies both an increase in the social importance of Davidic ancestry, as well as a widening of the perimeters of the Davidic patrilineage, whose cachet had for centuries been largely limited to those specific individuals who attained the office of exilarch. The appearance of this broader descent group, I argue, reflects changing attitudes within Jewish society and is the outgrowth of a new set of attitudes toward the House of David. At its core this book is a study of the forces that led to the emergence and the consolidation of that medieval collective. But fascination with the House of David was, I argue, just one facet of what was in reality a much broader concern with biblical ancestry, evidence of which can be found in parallel developments among a number of other segments of Jewish society. Priests, Levites, and others began to focus more emphatically on their biblical forebears, and, like Davidic dynasts, began as well to produce genealogical records to substantiate their descent from them. And as we shall see, Benjamin and Petaḥya will once again prove helpful as we explore this wider connection. Genealogical concerns also influenced the way the Jewish past was conceptualized, and they played an important role in the way historical figures were viewed. In many respects this “genealogical turn” was a consequence of Jewish society’s dynamic encounter with the surrounding Arab-Islamic milieu, a selective adaptation to the value placed on nasab (ancestry) in the dominant cultural environment.27 While Jewish society surely had sufficient genealogical materials and preoccupations of its own upon which to draw, Arab-­Islamic society and its valorization of documented—as opposed to merely asserted— ancestry ultimately provided the impetus for accessing those traditions anew and deploying them in ways that were unprecedented. The Jewish embrace of nasab was, however, a complex and multi-vocal phenomenon. On one hand it reflects Jewish acculturation; it is an instance of medieval Jews reflexively and unselfconsciously making use of the cultural forms of their Muslim neighbors. At the same time, it also entails an element of cultural competitiveness or perhaps even resistance, an implicit response to claims of Arab genealogical superiority using the very methods of the Arab “science of genealogy” (ʿilm al-nasab) itself. In fact, as we shall see, Jews were one of several non-Arab minority groups to take up genealogy in this particular way. At the broadest level, then, this work, in investigating Jewish genealogical claims, illuminates a strategy that various populations utilized as they sought cultural legitimacy within the medieval Arab-Islamic world. Individual and societal interests converged, as an ennobling lineage could benefit at one and the same time both the specific dynast and the larger community of which he was a member.



10 Introduction

It is my hope that the cultural insights gained through the kind of critical evaluation of genealogies undertaken in this work will encourage further research along such lines in the field of medieval Jewish history. Few will quibble with the premise that ancestral claims can tell us as much, if not more, about the period in which they were asserted as they can about the succession of past generations they putatively record. Historians of medieval Europe have been particularly attentive to connections between social developments and genealogical claims. Georges Duby correlated the extensive genealogical literature produced in France during the twelfth century with a number of critical changes that were then affecting the French nobility, among them a profound shift in its very conception of the family.28 Others have made similar efforts at contextualizing genealogical activity.29 Historians of Islamic civilization have demonstrated a comparable sophistication in dealing with genealogical sources, paying close attention to the social and political factors that lay behind the efforts to systematically document Arab lineages in the early Abbasid period.30 Historians of medieval Jewish society have, by contrast, been relatively uncritical in their approach to these materials, often treating genealogical sources as no more than reserves of data to be selectively pillaged for the purposes of reconstructing family histories.31 In so doing, they have tended to avoid a consideration of the motives that prompted medieval Jews to record at certain moments and in particular ways the lineages of specific individual members of their society. And though recent years have witnessed an explosion of interest in collecting and sorting genealogical information, relatively little effort has been given to understanding the social and cultural factors that determine both how such knowledge is acquired and how it is ultimately presented. Indeed, inquiries of this sort are sometimes viewed as entirely peripheral to what is deemed the proper practice of genealogical research. I hope the present work will succeed in demonstrating that the problematization of Jewish genealogical claims is both relevant and important—and not merely for individuals narrowly engaged in research on genealogical materials but for those broadly interested in understanding medieval Jewish culture as well.

The Sources The most important materials on the nesiʾim come from the Cairo Geniza, an enormous and highly varied corpus of medieval Jewish manuscripts that came to the attention of Western scholars in the late nineteenth century. Jewish tradition

Introduction 11

prohibits the destruction of sacred documents so as to prevent desecrating the written name of God. When such writings became worn out or were no longer of use, medieval Jews, following an ancient custom, either buried them in a cemetery or stored them in a special repository called a geniza.32 In practice, this courtesy was often extended to texts that we might regard as “secular” in nature as well, especially when written in Hebrew characters. One such repository was located on the premises of the Ben Ezra synagogue, a Jewish prayer house dating to the Middle Ages in what was formerly the town of Fustat (and today is the neighborhood of Old Cairo).33 The contents of that repository make up what is commonly known today as the Cairo Geniza. Accumulated over roughly a thousand years and now dispersed among some thirty libraries and private collections across the globe, the Geniza materials comprise roughly quarter million paper and parchment folio pages. The largest collection of these materials, amounting to roughly three-fourths of the total, was acquired in 1898 by Cambridge University Library at the instigation of Solomon Schechter (1847–1915), Reader in Rabbinics at the university.34 As one might expect, the vast majority of the Geniza manuscripts contain pages of biblical codices, rabbinic texts, legal codes, and works of Jewish philosophy, mysticism, and liturgical poetry. Subjects as disparate as the history of Jewish sectarianism, the vocalization of the biblical text, the development of halakha, Jewish thought and Hebrew literature have benefited from the discovery of these works, many of which were previously unknown. But preserved among these literary remains are also some 15,000 pages of documentary materials, sources that include business contracts, court dockets, marriage and divorce certificates, correspondence of all sorts, and records of the local Jewish community. These documents, written in Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew, are most abundant for the years between 1000 and 1250, dubbed the “classical Geniza period,” and constitute, in the absence of the kinds of archives available for medieval Europe and the Ottoman Empire, an unparalleled resource for the social, religious, and economic history of the Near East in the high Middle Ages. And because Fustat was home to one of the most important Jewish communities in the period covered by the documents, a community that served among other things as the hub of a commercial network stretching from India to Spain, the Cairo Geniza records offer a panoramic view of Jewish life in the Islamic world, shedding light on people, places, and events far beyond the borders of Egypt. It is these documents that provide the majority of the source material utilized in this study.35 Overlapping with and complementing the Cairo Geniza sources are two manuscript collections that were amassed by the Karaite bibliophile Abraham



12 Introduction

Firkovich (1786–1874). Currently housed in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, these collections contain over 15,000 Arabic and Hebrew items.36 Some of Firkovich’s hoard was procured in Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem; but the majority of the manuscripts, many of which date from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, were likely taken from the geniza of the Karaite synagogue in Cairo.37 As we would expect given their provenance, these manuscripts have proven to be of immeasurable importance for the study of the history and literature of the Karaites, a distinct group within medieval Jewish society about which more will be said below. While the Firkovich collections contain fewer documentary sources than the Geniza, they are nonetheless an important source of information regarding Jews’ genealogical concerns, as many prominent Karaite figures, including authors and religious leaders, were themselves nesiʾim. The first Firkovich collection was sold to the Imperial Library in 1862, the second in 1876—decades before Schechter’s acquisition of the Cairo Geniza manuscripts for Cambridge. But because scholars outside of Russia were not permitted regular access to the materials during the Soviet era, research on its contents is still in its earliest stages. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, new efforts have been made to catalog and publish some of these important manuscripts. The recovery of these various manuscript materials has transformed our understanding of the history of Near Eastern Jewish society in dramatic ways. Yet research involving them is often painstaking and slow. As a repository for worn-out writings, the Geniza was not designed to safeguard documents for future consultation, but rather was intended to be a place where they could be respectfully discarded. Its contents, therefore, are highly uneven, the result of haphazard and unpredictable processes of disposal. Furthermore, the manuscripts themselves are frequently in poor condition. Most are torn, and many are mere fragments. And even when one is fortunate enough to be able to make out several clear lines of writing, language and style can present further obstacles. Personal correspondence, one of the most important genres used in this study, is characteristically obscure, allusive, and lax in its adherence to the rules of Arabic grammar. Posing a particular challenge to the historian are the difficulties involved in properly dating documents; many make no mention of the day, month, or year when they were written. Only by means of careful comparison with other, more firmly datable materials can such documents be placed in a chronological sequence. Despite these limitations, however, the Geniza materials and the related manuscripts from the Firkovich collections constitute an unrivaled source for

Introduction 13

measuring and evaluating the importance of biblical genealogies for Jews in the Islamic East. The present study is based on over 400 of these texts, a corpus that includes correspondence, court records, communal records, genealogical lists, liturgical compositions, poetry, chronicles, biblical commentaries, and responsa. Offering a window onto the lives and mentalities of common men and women, this wealth of material reveals that Benjamin’s and Petaḥya’s descriptions of the exilarch in Baghdad were not merely the idiosyncratic adulations of outsiders, but echoes of a collective concern with the Davidic line that ran strong and deep within Near Eastern Jewish society itself. And so if, because of their vagueness or their poor state of preservation, many a Geniza text can do little more than attest to the existence of a nasi in some otherwise unspecified context, such materials should nonetheless be seen as meaningful, for in aggregate they strengthen our central contention that a visible and symbolically significant family of Davidic dynasts emerged during the Middle Ages to occupy a crucial place in Jewish society. From the earliest days of research on the Geniza, scholars recognized that its materials could shed fresh light on already familiar historical events and individuals. Over the past century the biographies of Judah Halevi and Moses Maimonides, to name only two of the most illustrious examples, have been considerably enriched by such newly discovered materials, enabling us to follow with greater precision the course of their respective careers, to situate them within larger social networks, and to comprehend the genesis and evolution of their writings. But the intersection of Geniza sources with well-known medieval texts has also permitted entirely new issues to come the fore, in some cases even leading to some rather significant revisions in the historiography. Such was the case with the nesiʾim. Though familiar with medieval texts that mentioned nesiʾim—texts like Benjamin’s travel account or Judah al-Ḥarizi’s Taḥkemoni, both of which had been printed as early as the sixteenth century—Jewish historians working before the systematic study of the Geniza paid scant attention to them. As documents from the Geniza began to be edited, however, and a wealth of new information on Davidic dynasts surfaced, interest began to grow. The newly available manuscripts not only directed attention to the nesi’im as a subject worthy of investigation, they also encouraged the rereading of printed texts containing hitherto unappreciated references to them. In such a manner the Geniza supplied the contextual background for more nuanced interpretations of some well-known medieval sources. Therefore, while Geniza and Geniza-related manuscript materials loom large in the present study, providing not only the catalyst for my research but



14 Introduction

also the lion’s share of my sources, they do not define the parameters of this work. Rather, like many working on the Jewish community reflected in those documents, I have also made use of contemporary “non-Geniza” materials wherever relevant, following the lead of my subject matter and not the provenance of my sources. And in fact a surprisingly wide range of non-Geniza texts relate in one way or another to the subject of the nesiʾim, providing a broad array of perspectives from which to evaluate the meaning of Davidic ancestry for medieval Jews and Muslims. These sources include printed chronicles, poetic compositions, halakhic literature, and, as we have already seen, travel accounts. Yet another important body of material comes from a variety of medieval Islamic sources, including reports in biographical dictionaries, chronicles, belletristic writings, collections of ḥadīth, and documents preserved in formularies prepared for use by government secretaries. In its stunning diversity this rich corpus of material demonstrates the importance as well as the pervasiveness of Jewish fascination with biblical lineage. The nature of these materials has determined to a great extent both the approach and the scope of this book. Given the inherent vagueness and the still tenuous dating of many of the relevant sources, not to mention the unresolved debates concerning the biographical details of quite a few nesiʾim, I have adopted what I believe is the prudent course of synchronic analysis, concentrating my efforts on providing an outline of a broad cultural pattern rather than trying to identify its development over the course of the period covered. The termini of this study are similarly a function of the Geniza sources, which are most abundant for the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. While in a few instances I have introduced texts that lie outside of those temporal parameters, I have done so with a view to demonstrating the depth and persistence of the conceptual shift that lies at the heart of this study and that is most readily glimpsed in the classical Geniza period. The physical setting of this book has in like manner been determined by the geographical dimensions of the Geniza world, with Egypt, Palestine, and Syria standing at its center, Iraq and Yemen in flanking positions, and Spain and North Africa receding to the margins.

Previous Scholarship Reminiscent of their twelfth-century forerunners, the first modern scholars to direct their attention to the House of David in the Middle Ages were captivated by the idea of Jewish power and tended to approach the nesiʾim in terms of the

Introduction 15

authority they exercised within the medieval Jewish community. The first sustained treatment appeared in 1914 as an appendix to Samuel Poznanski’s important study of the gaonate in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and was titled “The Exilarchs in the Post-Gaonic Period.”38 Poznanski, a rabbi and scholar whose primary research interests lay in the field of Karaite history, brought together in these twenty-some pages scattered bits of information culled from literary sources as well as a few recently published Geniza materials to reconstruct the history of the Davidic line over the course of a period that was barely discussed in any of the extant medieval chronicles. As the title of the appendix suggests, Poznanski’s efforts were focused on Davidic rulers and dealt primarily with individuals who held the office of exilarch. Poznanski’s work is significant not only for its pioneering effort to organize isolated references into a chronological framework, but also for developing the broad picture of a centralized exilarchate based in Baghdad, which, in the middle of the eleventh century, splintered into what would become several successor institutions located in cities throughout the Near East. Poznanski took the year 1038, the year Hayya Gaʾon died and the traditional terminus of the Babylonian gaonate, as the pivotal moment in this process. Among other things, Poznanski must also be credited for the decision to include in his study Karaites who held the title exilarch, a reflection of his deep interest in that community and an acknowledgment of the important connections underlying claims to royal ancestry in various segments of Jewish society. Poznanski’s presentation was carried forward and significantly nuanced in a series of studies undertaken by Jacob Mann, one of the first historians to rely primarily on the newly available manuscript materials.39 Though generally averse to drawing broad conclusions, Mann nevertheless offered a comprehensive account of the emergence of local exilarchal offices in an important article written in 1927 that went significantly beyond the biographical data gathered by Poznanski. Its title, “The Exilarchal Office in Babylonia and Its Ramifications at the End of the Gaonic Age,” reveals that Mann, like Poznanski, understood his subject to be the effects of decentralization on an institution of Jewish communal authority.40 In it Mann discussed several families of nesiʾim and the dynastic offices of leadership they established, beginning in the eleventh century, in places like Mosul, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Mann portrayed these nesiʾim as political pretenders who sought to replicate the exilarchal office beyond the borders of Iraq, and offered as causal explanations for their dispersion both external and internal factors. On the one hand, he attributed their appearance to the disintegration of Abbasid authority in the



16 Introduction

tenth and eleventh centuries, arguing that as local Muslim governors asserted their independence from Baghdad it became both necessary and expedient for Jews living in their lands to establish autonomous political institutions of their own. Local exilarchal offices were thus understood to be small-scale replacements for the Babylonian exilarchate, which was sustained up until that point by a strong and centralized Abbasid state.41 At the same time, Mann also saw the establishment of these offices as the result of a rivalry within the exilarchal dynasty itself—between the descendants of the brothers David ben Zakkay and Josiah ben Zakkay—that began in the first half of the tenth century and dragged on for almost a century.42 According to Mann, tensions between the two families for control of the exilarchate reached the breaking point with the nomination of Hezekiah ben David as exilarch sometime before the year 1021. Hezekiah’s appointment marked the restoration of the exilarchate to the line of David ben Zakkay, his great-grandfather, and the displacement of the descendants of Josiah ben Zakkay, who had had been in possession of the office for two generations. Mann proposed that Josiah’s descendants, deprived of their patrimony, decided to abandon Baghdad in order to establish rival exilarchal courts in towns in the newly autonomous outlying provinces. The impression that Josiah’s descendants were striving to create local political institutions was reinforced by the discovery in the Geniza of a variety of titles bestowed by these nesiʾim on their supporters, ­titles that were patterned after those dispensed by the yeshivot and the Babylonian exilarchate.43 Mann’s theory made shrewd use of the new manuscript sources that were then coming to light—in particular the genealogical information they contained for eleventh-, twelfth-, and thirteenth-century nesiʾim—and ingeniously integrated broad political developments in the Islamic world with the appearance of new institutions of local leadership in the Jewish community. It also solved what was becoming a growing problem with Poznanski’s explanatory model as more and more Geniza sources became available to scholars— namely, the fact that nesiʾim were evidently to be found in towns other than Baghdad before the year 1038. What Mann’s explanation failed to address, however, is the extent to which the emergence of local exilarchal offices also marked a significant break with earlier conceptions of the Davidic line, a diffusion of the esteem that was once reserved for the Babylonian exilarchate alone. Is it not reasonable to assume that, in addition to the institutional and geopolitical factors identified by Poznanski and Mann, a new understanding of the status of the House of

Introduction 17

David had also come into play? And would not such a conceptual reorientation have in fact been a critical precondition for the eleventh-century reconfiguration of Davidic authority documented by both historians? Such questions become all the more urgent when we realize that Mann’s emphasis on the emergence of new exilarchal offices actually addresses only part of the phenomenon that is reflected in the manuscript sources. For, as we will see, not all individuals identified in the Geniza by the title nasi can legitimately be described as aspiring local exilarchs. Finally, Mann’s heavy reliance on personal grievance to explain the fragmentation of the exilarchate in the eleventh century appears overly reductive, attributing, as it does, complex and enduring historical developments to ultimately trivial causes.44 The inadequacy of similar kinds of arguments to account for the emergence of the Karaite movement—arguments that saw Karaism as the consequence of ʿAnan ben David’s rejection by the Jewish aristocracy in Iraq—should caution us against putting too much faith in explanatory models that would hang structural change on the petty jealousies of disgruntled individuals.45 In fact, Mann himself acknowledged that in many cases nesiʾim seemed to be most influential within Jewish society in realms other than the political. He noted, for instance, that nesiʾim in several areas, including Egypt, seemed to enjoy “only a spiritual hold on the people,” their authority possessing “more of a moral than a political character.”46 Under careful examination, then, Mann’s position appears somewhat ambivalent. While he approached the nesiʾim principally as a manifestation of Jewish communal leadership and situated them within the history of Jewish political authority in the Near East, he also conceded that political success was not necessarily the most accurate measure of their popularity or importance.47 Is it possible that in emphasizing the (largely unrealized) political ambitions of nesiʾim in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries Mann was confusing consequence and cause? Perhaps at the root of this phenomenon lay a new and more widespread veneration for Davidic ancestry within Jewish society—a respect that in turn allowed some members of that lineage to achieve influence in a variety of guises.48 In his systematic perusal of documents from the Geniza, S. D. Goitein discovered an abundance of fresh material on nesiʾim, significantly adding to the information first examined by Poznanski and Mann. Yet despite the new sources at his disposal, Goitein did not substantially challenge the regnant explanation for the appearance of nesiʾim outside of the Abbasid heartland, nor did he deem their popular claim of Davidic ancestry to be, in and of itself, a matter worthy of further scholarly attention. Thus, while he edited numerous



18 Introduction

documents by or about nesiʾim that allowed him to adjust aspects of Mann’s treatment, Goitein did not produce an original, synthetic assessment of their importance in the Geniza society.49 Like Mann, he regarded the nesiʾim as aspiring rulers, a perspective evident in the decision to include the only sustained discussion of them in his magisterial Mediterranean Society, a mere two paragraphs in length, in a section on leadership in the Jewish community. “[I]t is not surprising,” he writes, “that some of [the exilarchal dynasty’s] more ambitious members should have tried to make capital of their dignity as ‘princes of the House of David.’ . . . We find them everywhere often trying to assume authority.” And like Mann, Goitein too determined that despite their aspirations, many nesiʾim seemed to possess little in the way of what he considered to be real political power. His conclusion was that nesiʾim were in fact “of no real significance, except when they were scholarly persons of renown.”50 At times Goitein could be even more emphatically judgmental in his description of the nesiʾim, as when he characterizes them as freeloaders who shamelessly took advantage of the generosity of local Jewish communities.51 Goitein’s dim view of the nesiʾim was undoubtedly informed by his low opinion of the Babylonian exilarchate, which, in his eyes, provided the inspiration for their own, more localized ambitions. In setting up an opposition between nesiʾim who, by virtue of their laudable scholarly pursuits, achieved social and historical significance, and those who were merely self-interested political opportunists and thus of little consequence, Goitein recycles a problematic dichotomy he used earlier to draw an unfavorable comparison between the gaonate and the exilarchate. “While the gaonate,” he writes, “was a force that penetrated the whole fabric of life . . . the secular head of the Jews, the so-called ‘head of the Diaspora,’ whose seat was in Baghdad, had only limited importance.”52 Goitein’s assessment of the nesiʾim may also be understood in terms of the broad critique of his work proposed by Miriam Frenkel.53 Frenkel observes that in Goitein’s reconstruction the classical Geniza period was characterized, above all, by a harmonious blending of Mediterranean and Hellenic elements. It was, moreover, an essentially capitalist and meritocratic society whose leaders were, appropriately, pragmatic and hardworking businessmen. As she puts it, Goitein viewed the Geniza society as “democratic, liberal, open and rationalist . . . the perfect embodiment of the western ideal.” As such, she notes, it was also “by necessity the complete antithesis of everything the west considered ‘oriental.’” Frenkel concludes that Goitein’s commitment to such a view led him at times to downplay or dismiss altogether what might have appeared as eastern characteristics in the Geniza sources.54

Introduction 19

Recently, Frenkel’s insights were productively extended in a new direction to help explain Goitein’s evident minimization of magic and magical texts in the Geniza.55 Her work may also be of assistance in accounting for Goitein’s treatment of the nesiʾim, whose preponderance in the Geniza could have called into question some of the central values that Goitein associated with its Jewish community. Popular enthusiasm for their royal ancestry would appear to run counter to his vision of the Geniza society as embodying a democratic and egalitarian spirit. The principle of dynastic privilege, underscored by their celebrated genealogies, would seem to challenge his notion of the world of the Geniza as a place where men could make of themselves what they wished. And the strong affinities that existed between the popularity of the nesiʾim and the veneration of the family of Muḥammad among Muslims might suggest that Mediterranean Jewish society was very much a part of its eastern, “oriental” environment. By focusing on the nesi’ im as failed aspirants to political power Goitein would thus have been justified in downplaying their historical importance and affirming the rational, meritocratic, and democratic elements that he identified at the core of the Geniza society. A number of Goitein’s students, chief among them Mark R. Cohen and Moshe Gil, have added considerably to the biographies of individual nesiʾim through both the identification of new materials and the reinterpretation of previously known ones. Cohen’s main contributions have come by way of his revisionist study of the origins of the post of the head of the Jews (raʾīs al-yahūd) in Egypt, in which he demonstrated that the office emerged gradually in the second half of the eleventh century, and not, as earlier historians (including Mann) had assumed, in the middle of the tenth. Among other things, Cohen highlighted the crucial role played by the politically ambitious and divisive nasi David ben Daniel (d. 1094) in the consolidation of the office of the head of the Jews.56 In a separate study Cohen also explored the political career of David’s father, the nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya (d. 1062), who served as gaʾon of the Palestinian yeshiva from 1051 to 1062.57 In writing about father and son Cohen noted the powerful symbolism of their ancestry, recognizing its broad appeal for medieval Jews and Muslims alike. Cohen’s conclusions not only transformed our understanding of the beginnings of local Jewish leadership in Egypt, they also dealt an indirect blow to one of Mann’s central claims about the nesiʾim. Mann had argued that the failure of nesiʾim to establish themselves as leaders in cities like Fustat and Qayrawān could be explained by the presence of alternate and pre­ existing forms of local Jewish leadership in Egypt and Tunisia, respectively. In the case of Fustat, Mann pointed to the office of the head of the Jews, which he



20 Introduction

and others presumed was founded by the Fatimid authorities shortly after their conquest of Egypt in 969. Cohen’s findings, which delayed the emergence of that institution by over a century, thus inadvertently reopened the puzzling question of why nesiʾim were so often unsuccessful in Egypt as political figures, and suggested that the received analytic paradigm was in need of reconsideration. Despite wide recognition for Cohen’s work, its implications for the significance of the nesiʾim were left unrealized. Gil’s voluminous writings, culminating in his monumental histories of the Jewish communities in Palestine and Iraq, have dealt with virtually every available source on the Davidic family in the Middle Ages.58 Through painstaking efforts he has extracted from them a wealth of detail, greatly expanding and complicating what we know about exilarchs and nesiʾim in the Near East. Gil’s contributions have not been limited to the accumulation of biographical data, however; he has also analyzed a number of literary texts that provide insight into the social and cultural meaning of the House of David for medieval Jews. His studies of the so-called “Scroll of Evyatar” and the Judeo-Arabic story of the exilarch Bustanay, two polemical tracts from the Geniza attacking the Davidic line, draw attention to the deep passions, both positive and negative, which enveloped claimants to that legacy and made them subjects of community-wide fixation.59 In these studies, as in his biographical sketches, Gil has performed an invaluable service for future scholars, providing the raw materials and the necessary foundation for further levels of synthetic research. Gil’s own work, however, has shied away from such analysis, tending instead to make adjustments to the framework set forth by Mann and later modified by Goitein and Cohen. Despite the accumulation of a substantial body of new information, Mann’s reconstruction thus continued to provide the basic framework for evaluating the significance of the nesiʾim in medieval Jewish society through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.60 Subsequent research has drawn from Mann’s work two important conclusions concerning the nesiʾim: first, that they are most appropriately understood as a topic within Jewish political history; and second, that their general lack of success as political leaders indicates that they constituted a relatively unimportant phenomenon within Jewish society.61 Taken together these impressions have understandably provided little incentive for a reexamination of the nesiʾim. As historical appraisals, however, they would seem to tell only part of the story. Most significantly, they fail to acknowledge the considerable effort that medieval Jews invested in celebrating, documenting, and occasionally resisting claims to Davidic

Introduction 21

ancestry. If nesiʾim only occasionally achieved positions of real political power, as official appointees or otherwise, their ubiquitous presence in the Geniza society nonetheless bears witness to the potency of the concept of the Davidic line that they embodied for their contemporaries. My treatment thus differs from that of previous scholars in approaching the widespread appearance of the nesiʾim as symptomatic of deeper, more fundamental processes operative within Jewish society in the medieval Near East—concerns over how Judaism could stake a unique claim to a scriptural heritage that it shared with Islam and Christianity, and anxieties about how to resolve the apparent contradiction between the Jewish people’s divine election and its second-class status in the eyes of the dominant society. From this perspective, preoccupation with biblical lineage appears as an adaptive response to the challenges of minority existence in the Islamic world, a reaction fueled by Jewish associations of King David with a golden age free of “the domination of foreign rule,” whether in the remote biblical past, the messianic future, or both.62 But the fact that these collective worries should so readily have found an answer in the celebration of a sacred lineage also reveals the operation of another process, one that pulls in the opposite direction, blurring rather than underscoring the lines between minority and majority culture. For Jewish veneration of the Davidic line was articulated through a vocabulary of respect for noble ancestors native to the Arab-Islamic environment, and the elevated importance of Davidic dynasts closely mirrored contemporary Islamic admiration for members of the family of Muḥammad. In its renewed interest in King David’s family, then, Near Eastern Jewry also demonstrated the extent to which it had become integrated into its religious and cultural environment, an instance of what Bernard Lewis has described as the Jewish community’s “Islamicization.”63 Davidic ancestry served, most immediately, the interests of its claimants, distinguishing them from their fellow Jews, conferring upon them social status, and in some cases even entitling them to positions of political power. Integral to my approach, however, is the notion that, besides its obvious relevance for the individual dynast, Davidic ancestry was also, fundamentally, a matter of collective concern. In one way or another all the sources upon which this study is based reflect a community-wide investment in the claims of descent from David, an interdependence of dynasts and their supporters. The reverence that claimants to the Davidic legacy found among their coreligionists attests to the fact that medieval Jews had a shared stake in ancient Israel’s royal line, its continuation and prestige stirring even those who were not direct heirs to its nobility. To be sure,



22 Introduction

there were also cries of opposition as individuals and factions sought, from time to time, to minimize the importance of the contemporary Davidic line or to challenge claims to authority within the Jewish community based on membership in its ranks. In the final analysis, however, these represent exceptions to the general rule, isolated voices, which, in their dissent, only call greater attention to the otherwise pervasive enthusiasm for the Davidic dynasty. Approached in this manner—as the expression of collectively held concerns—the importance attached to the House of David becomes a valuable measure of the attitudes and the anxieties, the wishes and the fears of medieval Jewish society generally, not merely the story of a select few within that community.

The Jewish Community I have referred to the minority status of Jews living in the medieval Islamic world, and a word about that population and its status is in order. Jews constituted a numerical minority of the total population among which they lived, though precise figures are notoriously hard to come by. We can get a very general sense of their numbers, however, by considering the population estimates arrived at by historians working on various regions in or about our period. Rough estimates place the total population of Egypt in the beginning of the fourteenth century at about three million.64 Working with data from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when overall population figures were probably slightly higher, historians have suggested that the Jewish population ranged between ten and twenty thousand. It would seem, then, that the Jews probably numbered less than one percent of the total population of the country.65 In cities such as Fustat and Cairo, however, their numbers represented a much greater portion of the urban population, perhaps exceeding ten percent of the total.66 The situation appears to have been similar in Muslim Spain. Eliyahu Ashtor estimated that Jews represented little more than one half of one percent of the total population of the country, but a considerably larger percentage in the urban centers.67 Unfortunately, comparable statistics are not available for the Jewish populations in Iraq and Iran, though it seems unlikely that the situation there would have been considerably different.68 But Jewish minority status was not simply an issue of population size; it was also a matter of law. In the eyes of the Islamic legal tradition Jews were a dhimmī people, a category that applied to Christians and various other nonMuslim religious communities as well.69 Dhimmī populations were to be

Introduction 23

protected in their person and property, were guaranteed the right to practice their religion, and were extended a wide measure for self-government. In return, they were expected to pay the jizya, an annual poll tax, and to comply with various discriminatory restrictions that are enumerated, in their bestknown form, in the so-called Pact of ʿUmar. Collectively, these regulations reinforced Islam’s preeminence within the social order and established a hierarchical relationship between its adherents and the dhimmī populations.70 More than a numerical inferiority to Muslims (as well as Christians), the Jews’ minority status thus involved a legislated subordination to the dominant faith. The subjugated yet protected status envisioned by the dhimmī system well suited Islam’s ambivalent theological stance vis-à-vis Judaism and Christianity, a position that combined elements of recognition and rejection. If the dhimmī system had recognizable social goals, its application nonetheless varied considerably over time and from place to place. Historians generally agree, however, that the Jewish minority fared well and experienced little in the way of systematic oppression before the middle of the thirteenth century. Geniza documents, for instance, suggest that many of the terms of the Pact of ʿUmar were more or less neglected in Egypt and Palestine during the Fatimid (969– 1171) and early Ayyubid (1171–1250) periods, and the same appears to have been the case in Spain as well before the Almohad conquests in the middle of the twelfth century. Rules requiring dhimmīs to wear distinctive clothing and prohibiting them from holding government office, which were applied with greater regularity in later periods, seem to have remained largely unenforced before the middle of the thirteenth century. At the same time, the documents make it abundantly clear that the Fatimids and Ayyubids routinely collected the poll tax from the dhimmī populations and that it constituted a major financial burden for the lower classes. And despite the generally stable conditions that prevailed during this period, violence and religious persecution were not entirely unknown. We hear, for instance, of episodes of Jewish suffering in Egypt and Palestine during the reign of the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim (996–1021), in Granada in conjunction with the assassination of the Jewish vizier Joseph Ibn Naghrīla (d. 1066), in North Africa and Spain during the Almohad invasions (1140s), and in Yemen under the Shīʿī ruler ʿAbd al-Nabī Ibn al-Mahdī (1160s). While dhimmī legislation sought to impose a marginal legal status on the Jews, the openness that prevailed in the economic and cultural spheres offered them opportunities to integrate more fully into their surroundings. Few if any limitations were placed on Jewish commercial activity during the classical Geniza period, permitting Jews and Muslims to interact on an equal footing in



24 Introduction

their business dealings. Jewish commercial activity was also highly diversified, underscoring the absence of the kinds of restrictive measures that emerged in Europe and confined Jews there to a limited number of professions. The Geniza demonstrates that Jews were employed as professionals, as skilled artisans, as manufacturers of goods, as retail and wholesale merchants, and even as landowners and agricultural producers. And commercial partnerships involving Jewish and Muslim businessmen, by no means uncommon in the Geniza period, provided regular occasions for members of the two groups to form close personal bonds as they jointly pursued profit.71 As a fourteenth-century Muslim jurist, evidently feeling some anxiety about the trend, put it: “Becoming partners with [dhimmīs] leads to intermingling, and that, in turn, to friendship.”72 Jews also succeeded in transcending the limitations of their dhimmī status through various intellectual and cultural pursuits that were facilitated, in turn, by their willing embrace of the Arabic language, the vernacular of scholarly discourse in the Islamic world. By the tenth century Jews had thoroughly adopted the language of their Muslim neighbors, relying on it not only for everyday communication but also as their primary literary medium, even when composing works of a distinctively religious nature.73 When we find rabbinic authorities in the twelfth century discussing the permissibility of praying in Arabic we get a sense of how far the process of linguistic acculturation had actually gone.74 The Jews’ easy embrace of Arabic was surely encouraged by their assessment of its close affinities with Hebrew and Aramaic.75 Maimonides writes in Pirqei Moshe (Chapters of Moses), echoing what must have been a fairly common perception, that “all who know Arabic and Hebrew agree that they are without doubt one language.”76 Through Arabic, Jews gained access to the vibrant intellectual life of the Islamic Middle Ages, to Arabic literature and to the flourishing study of Greek philosophy and science. The study of philosophy, especially, took place in an intellectual climate and in physical settings that were religiously integrated, allowing dhimmīs and Muslims to find common cause in the quest for rationally based knowledge. Describing the interdenominational circles of philosophical study that thrived in Baghdad in the tenth century, Joel Kraemer writes: “Cosmopolitanism, tolerance, reason, and friendship made possible the convocation of these societies, devoted to a common pursuit of the truth and preservation of ancient wisdom, by surmounting particular religious ties in favor of a shared human enterprise.”77 And even when working in more religiously homogeneous settings, philosophers were nevertheless predisposed to a view of society that tended to minimize the significance of confessional differences, emphasizing, as they did, the value of man’s natural capacity for rational thought.

Introduction 25

Medicine was another important field in which Jews could participate relatively unhindered before the middle of the thirteenth century.78 Jews and Muslims studied the medieval compendia of Galen’s works together, practiced their profession side by side, and valued one another’s scientific treatises. An illustrative example is Isaac Israeli (d. ca. 955), an Egyptian Jew who attended the founder of the Fatimid dynasty, ʿUbayd Allāh, trained Muslim students, and authored a number of well-regarded Arabic medical texts, including one on urine that was praised by an eleventh-century Muslim chronicler as “the most comprehensive work on the subject ever written, and by which [Israeli] gained superiority over all other writers.”79 There is even evidence, albeit of a more modest nature, of Jewish writers who composed belletristic works in Arabic, thereby earning reputations among contemporary Muslim poets and literary savants. Most of our information on these Jewish literati comes from the sixteenth-century Moroccan chronicler al-Maqqarī and reflects the situation in al-Andalus.80 But there is also the intriguing example of Judah al-Ḥarīzī (d. 1225), the Spanish-born writer and translator who left his homeland, traveled through the Near East, and ultimately settled in Aleppo. An eight-page biographical entry in an encyclopedia of Arabic writers by Ibn al-Shaʿār al-Mawṣilī (d. 1256) praises alḤarīzī for being a “talented and erudite” poet, revealing that Jews who wrote in Arabic verse could indeed find a place in Eastern literary circles as well.81 But the adoption of Arabic was not simply a matter of exchanging one linguistic medium for another; nor, it may be argued, were forays into religiously neutral territory its most dramatic result. In espousing Arabic, Jews were also engaging in a wide-ranging process that produced “fundamental changes in the articulation of Jewish culture.”82 The scientific study of Hebrew grammar, for example, began among Jews living in Arabic-speaking lands who had internalized the linguistic pride and the systematic methods of linguistic analysis of their Muslim neighbors.83 And the first efforts to work out a consistent presentation of Jewish theology commenced only after Jews began to think according to the conceptual paradigms developed by the scholars of Arabic Kalām.84 Linguistic and cultural integration did not, therefore, automatically imply an attenuated commitment to the rigors of Jewish observance or a weakened connection to one’s community. Such a conclusion is reinforced not only by the permission extended to Arabic prayer, cited above, but also by the query of Joseph Ibn Jābir, an avid student of Maimonides’ Arabic-language Commentary on the Mishnah who had difficulty reading Hebrew and who wrote to the master asking if he intended to produce an Arabic translation of his Mishneh Torah.



26 Introduction

Maimonides had no such plans, but Ibn Jābir’s question remains a telling indicator of the extent to which deeply committed Jews could be integrated into their cultural and linguistic surroundings.85 Despite the opportunities for acculturation and the relaxed enforcement of dhimmī legislation during the early part of the Middle Ages, Jews nonetheless saw themselves as a distinct minority in the Islamic world. Even in the writings of those who most fully embody the attainments of Goitein’s “Jewish-Arab symbiosis” we find frequent references to the Jews’ distinct status. In a poem that urges God to sweep away the dominion of Islam, the Andalusian Hebrew poet and neoplatonic philosopher Solomon Ibn Gabirol (d. 1058) characterizes the Jewish people’s beleaguered state in terms that also recall the powerful symbolism of the Davidic line.86 “Your people sit in exile,” he writes, “surrounded by enemies who now say we have no king.”87 And a perception of the Jews’ lamentable condition is similarly evident in the alternate title of Judah Halevi’s ­Kuzari—The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion. The most profound and best-known testimonial to this pervasive view, however, comes from the pen of Maimonides. In 1172 he addressed a letter to the Jews of Yemen offering them comfort as they confronted a wave of religious persecution and a crisis of faith. Surveying the history of the Jews’ experiences in Muslim lands, Maimonides wrote: “You know, my brethren, that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and debase us. . . . No nation has ever done more harm to Israel, and none has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have.”88 Maimonides, who had himself lived through a period of religious intolerance under the Almohad rulers of North Africa and Spain, wrote these words to relieve the suffering of his coreligionists in a moment of intense pain and to provide them with a theologically meaningful explanation for their travails. His comments, colored by personal experience and an understandable empathy for the plight of his addressees, should not, therefore, be taken as an impartial assessment of the position of the Jews in Muslim lands. They do, however, reflect the degree to which medieval Jews—even those integrated into the intellectual, cultural, and economic life of Islamic society—perceived themselves as members of a distinct and subordinate population.89 The Jews’ sense of vulnerability vis-à-vis the dominant society is reflected again in Maimonides’ discussion of the individual who chooses to abandon his faith. Such a person, he imagines, is able to rationalize his decision by saying to himself: “What advantage for me is

Introduction 27

there in clinging to Israel, who are humiliated and oppressed? Rather, it is better for me to join those with the upper hand.”90 The Jews’ minority status thus entailed significant complexities and ambivalences. Relegated to a distinct and inferior legal status by dhimmī policies, the Jews living in Arabic-speaking lands consistently represented themselves as the other in Islamic society, a notion conveyed through the frequently invoked rivalry between the biblical brothers Isaac (the Jews) and Ishmael (the Arabs/Muslims). But as that paradigm also suggests, the Jews saw themselves as connected in fundamental ways to their cultural and intellectual surroundings at the very same time. Literary scholars have identified this ambiguity as critical to understanding the new forms of Hebrew poetry that emerged in the tenth century, most dramatically in al-Andalus. There Jewish writers began to write poetry—the most prized form of literary expression in the Arabic-speaking world—in a new style that not only incorporated the themes, metrical patterns, and structural aspects of Arabic verse but that was designed to serve precisely the same social functions as well. Among the most remarkable aspects of this revolution in Jewish literary activity is that it took place in Hebrew and not, as we might have expected given its textual models, in Arabic. Jewish writers, in other words, began to write Arabized poetry, but did so emphatically using Hebrew, a situation that appears all the more surprising when one recalls that Jews were at that time making use of Arabic for almost every other kind of writing. The most compelling explanation for this seemingly anomalous preference for Hebrew in the composition of verse is that it represents an internalization of the ideals of ‘arabiyya, the cultural and religious conviction that Arabic is the most perfect language and, among other things, the most ideally suited for poetic expression.91 According to such a reading, Jews who wrote and patronized Arabic-style Hebrew poetry had not only absorbed such notions, but they had also begun to think of Hebrew and Hebrew literature in comparable ways. In composing poetry that was decidedly Hebrew in language but Arabic in form and function, they were, in a sense, reflecting the complexities inherent in their very identity. In one respect, of course, the production of such literature bespeaks the Jews’ profound embeddedness within the surrounding cultural environment, their having already internalized Arabic literary tastes and categories of thought. They were, as Ross Brann puts it, simply “doing what comes naturally.”92 At the very same time, however, it also underscores their status as an “other” in the Islamic world, as a minority seeking legitimacy from, or engaged in a cultural rivalry with, the host society. Summarizing this other dimension, Raymond Scheindlin observes that “the



28 Introduction

Jews seem to have adopted the essentially competitive idea of the perfection of their own language from the Arabs, and they chose to write poetry in Hebrew as a kind of answer to the Arabic claim.”93 As described by literary historians, the Jewish embrace of Arabic literary tastes, with its attendant complexities and conflicting motives, can also suggest ways of framing other realms of cultural interaction between Jews and Muslims. The Jews’ cultivation of ennobling ancestral traditions in the Middle Ages, no less a cultural formation than their production of Arabic-style Hebrew poetry, can, in fact, be understood along much the same lines. When Jews began, in new and more pronounced ways, to celebrate the genealogy of individuals who traced themselves back to biblical figures, they were, among other things, acting in accordance with a set of Arab-Islamic values that emphasized the virtue of distinguished ancestry and deemed the Arabs as being genealogically superior to all other peoples. The Jewish embrace and performance of nasab was, therefore, an unavoidably complicated affair, and, in the tensions it involved, not unlike the process by which Jews came to write according to a Hebraized form of Arabic aesthetics. On one hand, like Arabicstyle poetry, it represented a form of cultural convergence; Jews were reflecting on their own communal history by means of new categories of thought that had, by that time, already become instinctual for them. On the other hand, thinking back to our twelfth-century travelers, it is not difficult to find an element of cultural competitiveness at work as well. As Benjamin, Petaḥya, and others demonstrate, the celebration of Davidic ancestry often involved a double gaze in which Jews studiously observed the way Muslims were evaluating them and their genealogies. Like poetry, genealogy could thus serve as a cultural domain in which Jews sought to establish legitimacy in the eyes of the host society. Viewed along these lines, the Jews’ turn toward nasab-style genealogy and their veneration of Davidic and other biblical ancestries that resulted from it speak not only to developments taking place within Jewish society, to the reconceptualization of elements of the Judaic heritage, but also, more broadly, to the multi-faceted patterns of cultural interaction that existed between the Jewish minority and the Arabic-Islamic majority.94

Rabbanites and Karaites Thus far we have considered the religious-cultural divide between Jews and Muslims, but important divisions were also to be found within the Jewish

Introduction 29

community itself. Jews in the Near East and North Africa fell into two main religious factions: the Rabbanites, who felt bound by the traditions and norms of the talmudic rabbis, and the Karaites, who did not. More than just a theoretical debate over the religious authority of the rabbis, the dispute between Karaites and Rabbanites also resulted in significant disagreements about how, on a practical level, some of the most basic religious obligations should be carried out. Karaites and Rabbanites differed in the calendars they followed, in the prayers they recited, and in the dietary restrictions they observed. In order to address their distinctive spiritual needs, Karaites also formed separate communities, and supported, in many towns, synagogues and religious courts of their own. The history of relations between Karaites and Rabbanites has been told primarily through the lens of the sharp polemics that authors in both camps composed during the Middle Ages. Not only were Karaites portrayed as dissenters from authentic Judaism, they were depicted as the sworn enemies of the Rabbanites themselves. Recent scholarship, however, particularly research based on documentary sources from the Geniza, has added considerable nuance to this picture, demonstrating that in day-to-day life medieval Karaites and Rabbanites actually shared a great deal more than was previously imagined.95 The Geniza has revealed, for instance, that, throughout the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, Karaites and Rabbanites married one another, made use of one another’s courts, and attended one another’s synagogues. Perhaps most surprising of all, we even find Karaites providing financial support to the Jerusalem yeshiva, an institution, which, at first blush, would seem to be wholly objectionable to professed opponents of rabbinic teaching. Addressing the broader significance of these findings, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger concludes that “the Karaites did not consider themselves to be separate from mainstream Judaism, and nor were they considered as such by the Rabbanites.”96 That the two groups formed a single Jewish community in the period we are examining has important implications for the present work, since, as we have already noted, nesiʾim were to be found among Karaites as well as Rabbanites. Indeed, later Jewish tradition held that the Karaite movement was founded by ʿAnan ben David, who was not only a member of the Davidic dynasty but a candidate for the office of exilarch as well.97 And in the following centuries nesiʾim who claimed descent from ʿAnan occupied positions of stature in the Karaite community.98 Historians, however, have tended to treat Karaite and Rabbanite nesiʾim as two somewhat distinct phenomena, an understandable approach given the different roles they played in the two communities. But to defer to such



30 Introduction

distinctions, I would argue, is also to fall back on the problematic assumption that the Davidic dynasty is best understood within the framework of Jewish political history, and to presume yet again that its significance is most essentially revealed in the patterns of communal authority its claimants exercised. As I have repeatedly stressed, the appearance of nesiʾim in the Middle Ages is, among other things, evidence of a new emphasis on noble ancestry within Jewish society and the internalization of the importance of nasab. And when viewed in this manner, the differences between Karaite and Rabbanite nesiʾim dissolve, both in effect constituting instances of Davidic privilege that point to a common, underlying process that pervaded all segments of Jewish society in the Islamic East. In elucidating the significance of Davidic ancestry I therefore make use of Karaite and Rabbanite materials, recognizing that there were practical differences in the way nesiʾim functioned in the two communities. The growing evidence of close interactions between Karaites and Rabbanites, however, suggests that any attempt to historicize medieval Jewish veneration of the Davidic line must acknowledge its manifestation in both groups. The fact that Karaite and Rabbanite nesiʾim made use of the same list of ancestors to establish their Davidic credentials, a list that included the names of talmudic sages, further compels such an approach, and provides, in its own way, yet another illustration of the interdependence of the two communities during this period.

Nesiʾim in Western Christendom Those familiar with the history of the Jewish communities in Western Christendom may wonder why I have decided to focus exclusively on Jewish claims to Davidic ancestry in Islamic lands. For during the very centuries dealt with in this book several families of nesiʾim emerged in parts of Latin Europe too—in northern Spain, southern France, and perhaps even Germany.99 But while inspired by the same general emotional attachment to King David that underlay claims to his legacy in the Islamic world, these European dynasties ultimately fall outside the purview of this study, focused, as it is, on the way biblical lineages reflect and respond to the ambivalences of Jewish life in Arab-Islamic society. My interest is not in the mere fact that some medieval Jews claimed to be descendants of King David, but rather in the specific ways that claim was conceptualized in a given cultural matrix.100 Taking stock of genealogy is, after all, a more or less universal human enterprise. This study seeks to understand the social function it filled for Jews in the Islamic East.

Introduction 31

There are other considerations as well suggesting that, while superficially similar, the two phenomena were in fact quite different from one another, distinct products of processes of parallel evolution. While nesiʾim in the East were occasionally invested with religious or political authority, their ancestral claims, as we have already noted, existed quite apart from a defined base of power in the Jewish community. This was not the case in Europe, where claims to Davidic ancestry developed only as an afterthought to or as a justification for the attainment of power by particular dynastic groups in specific communal contexts.101 This distinction is critical, I believe, as it points to broader divergences between Latin Europe and the Near East regarding the social meaning of lineage. Furthermore, nesiʾim in Muslim societies related to their Davidic ancestry in very different ways from their counterparts in Europe. Eastern nesiʾim were much more deeply invested in publicizing their lineage than were nesiʾim in Spain, France, and Germany, with genealogical records playing a particularly important role in the cultivation of their Davidic identity. European nesiʾim produced no genealogies as far as we know and in general exhibited none of the anxieties about proving their lineage that were such a commonplace in the East. As we see in the next chapter, the profound cultural differences separating the Jewries of Latin Europe and the Islamic East regarding the significance of the nesiʾim are brought to the fore in a famous question posed to Abraham Maimonides (d. 1237) by a French rabbi living in Alexandria.

* * * This book is divided into two sections. The first, comprising Chapters 1 and 2, explores the new conceptualization of the royal line that emerged in ArabIslamic lands during the Middle Ages. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, by the tenth century, Jews and Muslims had come to think of the royal line as a family that was distinguished, above all else, by its noble ancestry. The reorientation of respect for the Davidic dynasty around lineage reveals among other things the extent to which Jews had internalized discourses within Arab-Islamic society concerning the social value of a respected pedigree. This process helps to explain the prevalence and the geographic diffusion of Davidic dynasts in the Middle Ages, as well as the unique popularity that they enjoyed within Jewish society. It also coincides with a tendency to view the Davidic family as a Jewish counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, the family of Muḥammad. Given the importance of their ancestry in the Middle Ages, Chapter 2 examines the various ways Davidic dynasts endeavored to articulate and make



32 Introduction

public their genealogical ties to King David. It focuses on three strategies: their development of elaborate genealogies connecting them to the biblical monarch, their preference for names associated with the Davidic family, and, to a lesser extent, the use of a lion’s image as a visual representation of the family’s royal origins. By these means, members of the Davidic line were able to reinforce popular interest in their ancestry and construct for themselves a public identity based on their distinguished pedigree. The second part of the book, comprising Chapters 3, 4, and 5, looks at three contexts that nourished the significance of Davidic lineage and provided arenas in which its meaning was played out. This section follows an outward trajectory, moving by degrees from the medieval present to the mythic future and from an analysis of political culture within the Jewish community to a comparative analysis of the role genealogy played in the legitimization of non-Arab communities more broadly. Examining texts bearing on several leadership crises in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, Chapter 3 demonstrates the important role that ancestry had come to play in political discourse within the Jewish community. The sources, which depict, among other things, conflicts between “the House of David” and “the family of Aaron,” highlight how political controversies in the medieval Near East could be conceptualized as disputes between competing lineages. At the same time these sources also underscore the extent to which an individual’s identification with an ennobling ancestor was selective and occasional, emerging most clearly at moments of competition or conflict. Chapter 4 shifts from the medieval present to the eschatological future, exploring the widespread messianic excitement that characterized Jewish society in the Near East during the eleventh and twelfth centuries as another important matrix for understanding the depth of emotion inspired by individuals from the Davidic line. If a backwards-looking respect for noble ancestors was critical to the social meaning of Davidic lineage, no less so was the future-directed anticipation of the House of David’s redemptive potential. Chapter 5 expands beyond the confines of Jewish society to consider Near Eastern Jewry’s concern with biblical ancestry in relation to the roughly contemporaneous genealogical preoccupations of Persians and Berbers. For these groups, as for Jews, ancestry provided both a means of integrating into Arab-Islamic society as well as a way to resist its claims of cultural superiority. My argument is that the genealogical traditions that stand at the center of this study should thus be viewed as one aspect of a much broader process whereby non-Arab peoples sought validation through the construction of Arab-style lineages.

Introduction 33

Rather than structuring this book as a series of discrete textual studies, I have chosen to organize it thematically out of the conviction that a synthetic approach to the material more effectively displays the pervasiveness of the attitudes I seek to describe—and it is these attitudes, after all, and not the texts in which they are expressed, that constitute my real subject. Utilizing such an arrangement, however, also means that a few key sources must inevitably be taken up in a number of contexts. To limit repetition I have tried to provide background and bibliographic information with the first major discussion.

Chapter 1

“Sharīf of the Jewish Nation”: Reconceptualizing the House of David in the Islamic East

Sometime in the late twelfth century, an otherwise unknown individual by the name of Abraham ha-Levi bar Tamim al-Raḥbī copied down, in a careful and clear hand, the lineage of a contemporary member of the Davidic line, tracing his ancestry back, son to father, through King David all the way to Adam (Figure 1).1 In medieval Hebrew, as in Arabic, individuals are typically identified according to the pattern “x son of y,” a model that can easily be expanded to include a third, fourth, or fifth generation when deemed important. Al-Raḥbī took this miniature genealogical form and extended it as far back as possible, traversing ninety-nine generations of ancestors as he recorded his honoree’s uninterrupted descent from the mythical progenitor of mankind. Beneath the genealogy, which sprawls across seventeen lines of text, he explains that he “wrote these words to acknowledge and give honor” to the Davidic dynast and his “royal family.” He declares himself “a friend of this noble, pure and unsullied family,” and writes that it was “a joyous hour when God gave [him] the merit to see the seed of our lord David, God’s anointed one.” Al-Raḥbī concludes this most intriguing document with a prayer that God should hasten “the coming of the messiah, the son of David,” a common enough wish in the Middle Ages, but one that was probably intended as more than a mere rhetorical flourish when appended to a Davidic genealogy such as this. Truly, it is difficult to imagine how a medieval reader of this text (and as we will see, such genealogical documents were indeed read) could have failed to connect its messianic conclusion with the celebration of the Davidic line that precedes it. Ironically, though, while we can clearly make out all his ancestors’ names, the identity of the “exalted presence” himself remains a mystery since al-Raḥbī’s

“Sharīf of the Jewish Nation” 35

Figure 1. The genealogy of the nasi [?] ben Zakkay that enumerates one hundred generations of ancestors and extends back to Adam. In Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic, probably mid-twelfth century. Halper 462. Reproduced courtesy of the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

document is torn at the top and missing the line of text that once contained his honoree’s given name. One might expect that it should nevertheless be rather easy to figure out who he was. How many nesiʾim, after all, could there have been with fathers named Zakkay, grandfathers named Joseph, great-grandfathers named Zakkay, and so on, who were also important enough to be eulogized in so dramatic a fashion? As it turns out, the list of ancestors does help us to identify him to an extent. Four generations back we encounter the name Zakkay ben ʿAzarya, a familiar figure from the middle of the eleventh century. Mentioned in a handful of Geniza documents, Zakkay was a brother of the famous nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya, who served as head of the Palestinian yeshiva from 1052 until his death in 1062.2 But about this Zakkay’s descendants and about his great-grandson in particular, for whom the genealogy was actually compiled, we know absolutely nothing—to date no other sources, whether from the Geniza or



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otherwise, make any mention of them. Al-Raḥbī’s adulation and enthusiasm notwithstanding, the unnamed subject of this genealogical text seems to have been a rather obscure individual. Unusual only in that it brings together in a single text so many of the recurring themes in medieval discussions of the Davidic line, al-Raḥbī’s genealogy gives us a sense of the new ways in which medieval Jews had begun to think about the royal family and its significance for them. To be sure, a passionate devotion to King David’s line was not an altogether new development in the Middle Ages. Medieval Jews were, after all, heirs to a rich and variegated set of long-held traditions and beliefs, some going back to the Hebrew Bible itself, which took a lively interest in the descendants of the ancient Israelite monarch. But if the general contours of this commitment to the House of David were relatively unchanging, its articulation had nonetheless taken on new forms and acquired new shades of meaning by the time Abraham alRaḥbī sat down to record the complete genealogy of his “Davidic master.” In referring to David’s line as a “noble family,” using a term that Muslims applied to the descendants of Muḥammad, in admiring the purity of the family’s lineage, and in speaking of the privilege of beholding even one of its lesser known members—in these and in numerous other ways al-Raḥbī’s remarkable text reveals the extent to which new attitudes were coloring Jews’ perceptions of the royal family and its role in their society. This chapter evaluates the status of King David’s family in the Middle Ages from a historicist perspective, drawing attention to the new ways in which Jewish society began to conceptualize and express its importance in the centuries following the Islamic expansion. Discerning what in fact constitutes a new layer of meaning in this period is not an easy task since we are ultimately searching for what amounts to subtle variations on a familiar theme, faint shifts in thinking that almost certainly eluded the attention of the medieval writers upon whose testimonies we are dependant. Further complicating our effort is the fact that the overwhelming majority of sources at our disposal uphold, in one way or another, a view of the Davidic dynasty as something stable and continuous over time. Identifying evolving attitudes toward the Davidic family thus requires not only looking for things that can be difficult to see, but also relying on medieval sources that were often written with a view to obscuring the very process of change that we are trying to illuminate. Abraham al-Raḥbī’s genealogical list is a case in point. On the surface the text projects a view of the family of David as an eternal and unchanging entity; it is a veritable celebration of continuity across the longue durée that links, by means of the Davidic line, the biblical past

“Sharīf of the Jewish Nation” 37

and the medieval present. And yet, as I am arguing, genealogies such as this are themselves the products of a novel way of perceiving the Davidic family, the result of a new pride in the completeness and the demonstrability of its pedigree, which developed only in the centuries after the Islamic conquests. The determination to chart with precision the biblical roots of the Davidic line thus turns out to be a tell-tale sign of the uniquely medieval conceptualization of the royal family lurking beneath the surface of this seemingly straightforward text. Accordingly, our analysis involves reading a good many of the available sources “against the grain,” probing beyond the narrative of linear continuity which they seek to project. But if highlighting change in medieval perceptions of the royal family is therefore an endeavor beset with challenges, it is also one that can open up new ways of thinking about a conspicuous yet poorly understood aspect of medieval Jewish society. As I argue, the flood of such claims not only represents a significant departure from earlier forms of attachment to the line of David, it also speaks to broader changes affecting Jewish society in the Islamic period. Before we can contemplate the significance of change, however, we must first establish that it indeed occurred; and so the present chapter lays out the evidence for drawing such a conclusion. In so doing, it will also provide the historical framework that underlies my analysis of the meaning of the Davidic family for medieval Jews in the remainder of the book.

The Rabbinic Legacy As noted, the vast compilations of rabbinic literature—the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds and the collections of exegetical commentary (midrash)— contain a great store of interpretive traditions and beliefs concerning King David and his family. My intention in what follows is not to provide an exhaustive survey of the various themes contained in that corpus, but rather to draw attention to the way rabbinic sources relate to the post-biblical House of David and how they regard claims to membership in it.3 Shaped as they were within a highly specific cultural milieu, rabbinic materials cannot provide a complete account of Jewish perceptions of the Davidic line in the pre-Islamic period.4 They can, however, help us recognize when medieval sources communicate ideas that are not rooted in the rabbinic literary canon, and, in so doing, can bring us closer to determining whether such divergences are historically meaningful. Once we have delineated the general shape of this earlier stratum of



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r­ eflection on the Davidic line, we will be in a better position to see where medieval Jews elaborated upon, and departed from earlier traditions as they, in turn, encountered claimants to Davidic ancestry in their own day. While it may seem self-evident, it is nonetheless worth noting at the outset that rabbinic sources accept in principle that authentic heirs to the Davidic line could be identified in post-biblical Jewish society. They are not, however, always in agreement about the details of their lineage. A telling example involves Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the late second- and early third-century patriarch regarded as the redactor of the Mishnah. Though in a number of texts Judah is accepted as an unquestioned descendant of King David, in one rabbinic source he confesses that his claim to a royal pedigree goes through the maternal side and is therefore inferior to that of the Babylonian exilarch.5 The ambivalence toward the Davidic lineage of Judah ha-Nasi in this passage would seem to reflect tensions within rabbinic circles over the legitimacy of the patriarchate, a dynastic institution of leadership whose authority was buttressed by the claim of a royal pedigree.6 As Albert Baumgarten observes: “The conclusion seems clear. . . . The ‘confession’ of poor Davidic genealogy is the product of some opponent. It is a subtle response to the Patriarchal claims: to deny these claims outright might have been too dangerous; to reinterpret them so as to make them practically worthless would have been safer.”7 And yet while such sources may, in their opposition to the patriarchate, question the ancestry of particular individuals and families, they do not dispute the more fundamental notion that legitimate members of the Davidic family continued to exist in Jewish society. Indeed, as the tradition about Judah haNasi amply demonstrates, challenging the genealogy of one Davidic claimant might go hand in hand with an endorsement of that of another. The tradition about Judah ha-Nasi’s genealogy highlights a second point as well: when rabbinic sources evince an interest in Davidic ancestry, they almost always do so to the extent that it is a qualification for some particular function—either in a real and immediate form, as represented by the hereditary offices of exilarch and patriarch, or more remotely, as when embodied in the eschatological figure of the messiah. Rabbinic texts, in other words, seem to be either unaware of or largely uninterested in claims to Davidic lineage that are detached from communal functions.8 Judah ha-Nasi’s alleged descent from David was a matter of importance because his descendants in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries used it to justify their patriarchal prerogatives. But the patriarchs also claimed to be the descendants of Hillel, an important first-century sage. And so it comes as little surprise that Hillel’s ancestry, too, was taken up in

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rabbinic texts, again with a view to providing the patriarchate with firm genealogical credentials. Rabbi Levi, a third-century sage, reports that “they found a genealogical scroll in Jerusalem, and in it was written, ‘Hillel is from David.’”9 With such proof of Hillel’s own royal pedigree, the dual ancestral claims of the patriarchate—as descended from both Hillel and King David—could apparently be harmonized. Much as the status of the patriarchate triggered discussions of Davidic ancestry, so too did questions about the status of the Babylonian exilarchs. Deliberating on the protocol during public readings of the Torah, the Talmud questions the appropriateness of a Babylonian custom to lower the scroll to the exilarch rather than obliging him to go up to it. This, we are told, was an honor previously reserved only for kings and high priests. Justifying the Babylonian practice of extending it to exilarchs as well, Yosi ben Bun argues that they should indeed be treated in the manner described “because the seed of David is infused there.”10 It is important to note, however, that the Davidic pedigree of the exilarchate is brought up in order to explain a puzzling ritual. It is in fact peripheral to the real concern of the passage (determining whether the Babylonian custom is justifiable) and is already assumed to be true when introduced into the discussion. The most frequently cited allusion to the pedigree of the exilarchate comes in the form of a gloss on the first half of Genesis 49:10 (“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, and the ruler’s staff from between his feet”), a verse that in its most straightforward sense relates to the monarchy founded by Judah’s descendant, King David. “‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah’—this refers to the exilarchs in Babylonia who rule over Israel with scepters; ‘and the ruler’s staff’—this refers to the descendants of Hillel who teach the Torah in public.”11 The rabbinic interpretation extends the allusions to royal authority in the verse to include later claimants to the Davidic pedigree as well, providing scriptural sanction to the exilarchal and patriarchal offices. Like the previous example, however, the tradition simply assumes the existence of a genealogical connection to David without making an effort to demonstrate it or establish its accuracy. Besides acknowledging that descendants of David could be found in the ranks of contemporary Jewish leaders, rabbinic sources also identified a continuation of the royal line in the person of the anticipated redeemer, often referred to as the “messiah son of David” or simply “the son of David.” Present and future claimants might even be merged. Several statements imply that Judah ha-Nasi, for instance, was regarded as a messianic figure by some of his contemporaries.12



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But here again Davidic ancestry is construed largely as a precondition for power. Davidic pedigrees assume importance and merit discussion in rabbinic texts because they qualify their claimants for positions of leadership and authority; divorced from these they seem to possess little or no intrinsic significance. As the examples cited above illustrate, in rabbinic sources claims of Davidic ancestry might be alluded to (as in the gloss on Genesis 49:10), asserted (as in the statement that “Hillel is from David”), or even challenged (as when Judah ha-Nasi concedes his genealogical inferiority to the exilarch), but they are never substantiated with genealogical evidence. Given their apparent investment in such traditions, rabbinic materials exhibit surprisingly little interest in detailing the exact line of ancestors through which patriarchs and exilarchs would have traced themselves to King David. Indeed, beyond the vague assertion that the patriarchs were descendants of David “on the maternal side,” the only specific information rabbinic sources seem to know about their pedigree is which of King David’s sons they could claim as an ancestor.13 We are on a similarly bad footing when it comes to reconstructing the precise lineage of the exilarchs. Given that rabbinic sources implicitly affirm the ongoing importance of the Davidic line in Jewish society, their disregard for the details of the Davidic pedigree is striking.14 And the absence of precise genealogical information for the Davidic family appears that much more surprising when compared with its documentation in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Commenting on this situation and noting an important distinction between vague ancestral claims and hard genealogical evidence, Marshall Johnson observes that while rabbis attempted “to exalt the memory of admired predecessors by providing them with honorable ancestry . . . such attempts were not always based on genealogical records.”15 Rabbinic sources thus appear to display only a limited interest in the postbiblical line of David. While they acknowledge and discuss contemporary claims to Davidic ancestry, rarely if ever is that pedigree, in and of itself, the true focus of their attention. Instead, they tend to be preoccupied with the narrower question of how ancestry and power intersect—with the way Davidic pedigrees might or might not support succession to positions of formal authority in the Jewish community. Considered by themselves, however, claims to membership in the Davidic line seem to have held little meaning for the editors of the rabbinic corpus. Furthermore, rabbinic literature devotes surprisingly little attention to genealogical documentation. Both in supporting and in rejecting claims of Davidic ancestry, rabbinic sources noticeably avoid discussing the actual lists of ancestors upon which such claims would have had to rely. Indeed, rabbinic sources

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seem profoundly uninterested in the genealogical intermediaries by means of which an individual could link himself to an ennobling ancestor in the mythic past. Ancestral claims may have mattered to the rabbis, but rabbinic literature reveals only the vaguest awareness of, or interest in, how such claims would have actually been substantiated.

Medieval Continuities When we consider the situation that emerges from medieval sources, we encounter a number of important continuities with the rabbinic past. First, the Middle Ages witnessed the perpetuation of structures of Davidic authority that had their origins in the rabbinic period. While the patriarchate was abolished by the Romans in the year 425, the exilarchate continued to operate throughout the Middle Ages, even expanding its jurisdiction under Islamic rule. With respect to the institutional configuration of the Davidic family, then, the medieval period seems to manifest an affinity with the rabbinic past. Second, those who claimed royal ancestry in the Middle Ages always traced their lineage through Davidic dynasts mentioned in the rabbinic corpus. While the overwhelming majority of nesiʾim regarded themselves as descendants of the line of the exilarchs, a few connected themselves to David through the patriarchs in Palestine. David ben Hodaya, a signatory to a letter of excommunication in 1376 who counted a mere eleven generations between himself and Judah ha-Nasi, was one such figure.16 Another was Nehorai, a physician in Tiberias, who, according to Petaḥya of Regensburg, “possesses a genealogy going back to Rabbi Judah.”17 But whether they linked themselves to David through the line of the exilarchs or through the line of the patriarchs, medieval nesiʾim made use of preexisting claims that had already been sanctioned by rabbinic tradition. Continuities with the rabbinic past are also reflected in the titles borne by medieval claimants to Davidic ancestry. The rabbinic designation rosh ha-gola was used in the medieval period for exilarchs and on occasion for other members of the Davidic line, while the title nasi, as we shall see, became in the Middle Ages a generic term for many of the descendants of King David. Finally, medieval members of the Davidic family saw themselves, and were viewed by their contemporaries, through the prism of rabbinic lore concerning patriarchs and exilarchs. Maimonides, for example, takes it as axiomatic that twelfth-century exilarchs were entitled to appoint judges with universal jurisdiction precisely as their rabbinic-era predecessors had been.18



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And a similar impression is conveyed by Nathan ha-Bavli. In his flattering portrayal of the exilarchate, he describes a ceremony for the appointment of a new exilarch, which, we are told, included a public reading from the Torah. According to Nathan, when the Torah scroll is taken out “first a kohen reads, and after him a Levite. Then the cantor lowers the Torah scroll to the exilarch while the rest of the people stand. He takes the scroll in his hand, rises, and reads from it.”19 The ritual described in Nathan’s report is clearly based on the Babylonian practice of bringing the Torah scroll to the exilarch discussed above and defended by Yosi ben Bun.20 Demonstrations of deference toward medieval exilarchs were thus informed by the prerogatives and ceremonial practices recorded in earlier rabbinic literature. In a similar vein, the rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 49:10, which sanctioned the authority of exilarchs and patriarchs in late antiquity, was extended without hesitation to medieval exilarchs as well. As noted in the introduction, Benjamin of Tudela explains that the Abbasid caliph treated the exilarch with great respect during their weekly interview in accordance with the injunction in Genesis 49:10. And Daniel ben Ḥisday, the reigning exilarch during Benjamin of Tudela’s visit to Baghdad, alludes to this same verse in a letter preserved in the Geniza in which he argues for his jurisdictional authority over the Jewish community in Egypt.21 But medieval exilarchs were not the only members of the royal family whose status was filtered through the lens of the rabbinic textual tradition. When ʿEli ha-Kohen composed a poem in honor of the nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya, head of the Palestinian yeshiva, in the spring of 1057, he too drew on the rabbinic understanding of Genesis 49:10 as a way of glorifying his subject’s noble ancestry.22 And when the Damascus nasi Jesse ben Hezekiah issued a letter of excommunication at the end of the thirteenth century against those attempting to ban the writings of Maimonides, he also found it expedient, in justifying his actions, to invoke the rabbinic gloss to that verse.23 The tendency to define the status of medieval nesiʾim through rabbinic statements about patriarchs and exilarchs is evident as well in the controversy involving the early thirteenth-century nasi Hodaya ben Jesse in Alexandria. Hodaya claimed an unusually broad and ultimately controversial license to impose public bans, invoking as his justification the talmudic principle that “one who is banned by the patriarch [nasi] is considered banned by all of Israel.”24 Abraham Maimonides penned an important responsum, examined in detail below, challenging Hodaya’s actions as well as his reasoning. For the moment, however, it is simply worth noting how easily medieval Davidic dynasts

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like Hodaya could identify themselves with rabbinic-period patriarchs and exilarchs and present themselves as their direct successors.

Beyond Patriarch and Exilarch Despite the apparent continuities there are nonetheless some rather significant ways in which the medieval situation was at variance with that reflected in rabbinic sources. One crucial difference involves the expansion of the claim of Davidic ancestry beyond its historic, institutional base. The almost complete overlap of Davidic ancestry and Davidic authority found in rabbinic literature disintegrates in sources from the Middle Ages as claims to Davidic ancestry are no longer tied exclusively to particular authority structures in the Jewish community. If previously the social value of royal lineage was restricted to those individuals who succeeded in winning appointments as either exilarchs or patriarchs, during the Middle Ages the value of a Davidic pedigree could be actualized by a much wider pool of dynasts, most of whom would never hold a Davidic post.25 To be sure, many nesiʾim in the Middle Ages did hold positions of authority, and it is the nature of our uneven source material that much of what we know about the Davidic family concerns such individuals. Only a small fraction of those, however, held offices that were restricted to members of the Davidic family—what I mean by a Davidic post. The nasi Hodaya ben Jesse, for example, whom we just encountered, served as a judge in Alexandria, occupying a position that was in effect open to any male member of the Jewish community. As head of the Palestinian yeshiva, the nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya also held an official appointment, but this too was a communal post with no intrinsic connection to the Davidic line. More significantly, though, we also find nesiʾim who did not, as far we can tell, occupy any official post whatsoever, whose nasi status seems to have been a function of ancestry rather than authority. Thus, alongside the exilarchate, which continued to operate throughout the medieval period and which historically embodied the cachet of King David’s line, there emerged alternative configurations of the royal lineage, arrangements that were more emphatically oriented around the importance of noble ancestry. The process I am describing can be seen in, among other things, a shift in the way the title nasi was used in medieval sources. In rabbinic literature, as we have noted, the designation was applied primarily to patriarchs, though it could be used for exilarchs as well. With the termination of the office of patriarch in



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the fifth century, the latter usage became more pronounced. The “Epistle of Sherira Gaʾon,” for instance, illustrative of the convention used in the writings of the Babylonian geʾonim, consistently refers to the exilarch by the title nasi. But during the Islamic period the title also acquired a new and broader meaning as well, one that was determined by lineage rather than administrative function. And it was surely with this expanded sense of what it meant to be a nasi that Yefet ben David ben Shekhanya, cantor of the Palestinian-rite community of Fustat in the first half of eleventh century, wrote to Daniel ben ʿAzarya sending blessings of good fortune to “my master and lord, the great nasi Daniel, head of the yeshiva of the Pride of Jacob” as well as to “his three sons, the nesiʾim” who were then only children.26 To be recognized as a nasi it was thus no longer of necessity to be a leader. In describing the layout of “the great synagogue of the exilarch” in Baghdad, Benjamin of Tudela reflects this expanded and more genealogically focused usage of the title as well. “In front of the ark,” he informs his readers, “there are about ten steps of marble, on the uppermost of which are the seats of the exilarch and the nesiʾim of the House of David.” 27 And in a similar vein, a poem that appears to have been written in celebration of the appointment of Sar Shalom ben Phineas to the office of exilarch refers to “our nasi Sar Shalom” along with “his sons, the nesiʾim.”28 Indeed, medieval sources are replete with references to nesiʾim who are designated as such apparently on the basis of their Davidic ancestry alone. And the same phenomenon is also attested among Karaites, from whom we might have expected greater efforts at controlling the use of the title given the legal and administrative roles that nesiʾim filled in their communities in Palestine and Egypt.29 What permitted and lay beneath the expanded use of the title in these instances, was, ultimately, a new way of thinking—a growing respect for Davidic ancestry per se and a sense that noble lineages had intrinsic and not merely expedient value. The broadening of the title nasi in the Middle Ages was not a development that was altogether unique to the Near East. In Christian Europe, too, the title began to be used in ways that extended beyond its narrow signification in rabbinic sources, yet there the process followed a noticeably different course: the functional aspect of the title, signifying succession to a recognized office of authority, was brought to the foreground and transferred to new types of communal leadership, while the implied genealogical ties to David, which became so important in the East, tended to recede into the background. In towns like Narbonne, Barcelona, and Toledo the title was adopted by members of a powerful Jewish aristocracy who benefited from close ties to

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the ruling nobility. This sense of the title was also projected into the past. The depiction of Jacob Ibn Jau’s rise to power in late tenth-century al-Andalus in Sefer ha-qabbala (Book of Tradition) makes it clear that, as Abraham Ibn Daud and others in twelfth-century Christian Spain understood it, the title nasi signified above all else someone who was entrusted with communal authority. According to Ibn Daud, al-Manṣūr, the Umayyad regent, took a liking to Ibn Jau and issued him a document placing him in charge of all the Jewish communities from Sijilmasa to the river Duero, which was the border of his realm. [The decree stated] that he was to adjudicate all their litigants, and that he was empowered to appoint over them whomsoever he wished and to exact from them any tax or payment to which they might be subject. . . . Then all the members of the community of Cordova assembled and signed an agreement [certifying] his position as nasi, which stated: “Rule over us, you, your son, and your son’s son also.”30 If appointment by the temporal authorities and authorization by the Jewish community had been crucial for nasi status as it was understood by Ibn Daud, royal ancestry apparently was not since earlier in his chronicle Ibn Daud informs his readers that members of the Davidic line were of negligible significance in Jewish society in al-Andalus.31 Moses Naḥmanides’ objection to the excesses of the nesiʾim in Barcelona reveals a similar perception of the title as marking communal authority rather than royal ancestry. Complaining about the impiety and heavy-handed rule of the Barcelona nesiʾim, he suggests that their status derived from their appointment to “the office of bailiff and their moving in the courts of kings and their palaces.”32 While some of these aristocratic European families did, eventually, develop foundation stories—but not, it must be noted, genealogical lists­—linking their ancestors with the line of the exilarchs, such traditions emerged in response to and as an explanation for preexisting power and influence. Writing about this process in Spain, Yitzhak Baer observes that “because of their success at court, Davidic lineage was ascribed to them, the title Nasi bestowed upon them, and they were allowed whatever special privileges they arrogated to themselves.”33 And even then Davidic lineage rarely amounted to more than an expendable accessory of the Jewish aristocracy in Europe. A comment by Judah al-Ḥarīzī illustrates the divergence in the way Jews in the Islamic East and Jews in Western Christendom understood the title. “Among



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their nesiʾim,” al-Ḥarīzī writes of the Jewish community of Toledo, “is the Levite Rabbi Meir ben Todros.”34 In Christian Spain, where the title nasi was regularly applied to local elites, such a description would have been entirely comprehensible. But in the Islamic East, where lineal descent from King David was the primary qualification for nasi status, it would have made little sense. A comparison with the situation in Christian Europe thus clarifies the unique and contextually specific semantic shift that occurred in the East. The growing importance of Davidic ancestry as such is also evident in the substitution of the word dāʾūdī for the title nasi in Arabic and Judeo-­ Arabic. Dāʾūdī means “descendant of David” and is a typical Arabic noun of relation, or nisba—a grammatical form used to identify an individual on the basis of a distinguishing characteristic such as physical appearance, place of origin, profession, or, as in this case, ancestry. Dāʾūdī is not, therefore, a literal rendering of nasi, but rather an interpretation that exposes the particular significance the title held for Jews living in Arabic-speaking lands. Used by both Muslims and Jews, the term points unequivocally to the way the ancestral claim eclipsed layers of meaning connected with particular functions and positions.35 The ease with which the Hebrew and Arabic terms could be substituted for one another is demonstrated by a pair of Judeo-­ Arabic letters sent three weeks apart from Israel ben Nathan to Nahray ben Nissim. The first, dated December 20, 1051, refers twice to Daniel ben ʿAzarya, recently appointed head of the Palestine yeshiva, as “al-dāʾūdī,” while the second, written on January 11, 1052, just as naturally styles him “our master, the nasi.”36 The same process also led to the interchanging of the Hebrew term kohen with the Arabic hārūnī, “descendant of Aaron.” Thus, for example, a letter sent by Abraham ben Ḥalfon to ʿEli ben Ḥayyim in November 1090 refers to the addressee as ʿEli ha-Kohen in the second line of the text, but as ʿAllūn ibn Yaʿīsh al-Hārūnī in the Arabic-script address written in the margins.37 It is understandable that the Arabic forms were preferred in communications with the Muslim authorities.38 Such substitutions reveal deep processes of cultural reconfiguration; they are evidence not only of the Jews’ embrace of Arabic, but of Islamic culture’s ability to structure Jewish notions of social status as well. The significance of titles like nasi and kohen had evidently come to be identified with their genealogical connotations, and it is precisely these elements that prevail in their Arabic renderings. While an ancestral affiliation had been implicit in the titles nasi and kohen, it was ultimately their translation that provided the occasion for that meaning to become explicit.

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Stress on the genealogical connotations of the titles nasi and kohen is further illustrated by their extension in certain instances to women as well. A marriage contract drawn up in Cairo in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century effects the marriage of a certain Hillel the elder to a woman who is referred to as almana ha-kohenet, “the priestly widow,” employing a rabbinic designation to emphasize that she was the daughter of a kohen.39 In an undated Arabic letter from the Geniza, a Karaite woman informs her mother of various pieces of news including the fact that “the old woman from the line of David has died [mātat al-dāwūdiyya al-kabīra].”40 And a dirge written on the death of a nasi reflects a similar tendency. Noting the deceased’s noble lineage, the poem mourns: “Gathered up is the son of the nasi of my people, yea the son of nesiʾot.”41 That women could enjoy the cachet of a distinguished biblical lineage also emerges from a list of members of several families of Levites in which it is specifically noted whether a man’s wife or mother was herself of levitical lineage.42 Scholars have observed that medieval conceptions of ancestry were largely concerned with the male members of society: it was the ancestry of men that mattered most, and it was their descent from men that was normally taken into consideration. Only in such rare cases in which the maternal line was deemed to be more important than that of the father might it be cited instead.43 The genealogical records produced for members of the Davidic line (which are considered in greater detail in the next chapter) bear out this ­observation—Davidic ancestry is in every instance recorded through a succession of forebears that is exclusively male, even in those cases in which one would expect to find female ancestors.44 But if medieval women were not customarily regarded as the active transmitters of noble ancestry, the sources cited suggest that they might nonetheless occasionally be seen as its passive recipients. And the inclusion of women in the reckoning of at least some noble lineages provides yet another gauge of the importance of biblical lineage in the Geniza society. The uncoupling of Davidic ancestry from structures of Davidic authority also lies at the heart of the famous exchange between Abraham Maimonides and Joseph ben Gershom, to which I have already alluded.45 The former, in his capacity as the administrative head of Egyptian Jewry, had appointed the French-born Joseph as a judge in Alexandria. Along with other European Jews in that town, Joseph became embroiled in a conflict with the nasi Hodaya ben Jesse. Though apparently not the occupant of an official post at the time of the conflict, Hodaya, a member of a family of nesiʾim hailing from



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Mosul that had established a presence in Syria and Egypt in the thirteenth century, was nonetheless an influential figure in the Jewish community of Alexandria, and, as we have seen, claimed the right to issue public bans on the basis of his ancestry.46 When Joseph sought to curb what he regarded as the nasi’s illegitimate exercise of authority, Hodaya retaliated by placing him under the ban, accusing the community of French Jews in the town of being “heretics, unbelievers, and corporealists,” and threatening with excommunication anyone who offered them financial support. As we have already noted, Hodaya justified his actions by invoking the talmudic principle that “one who is banned by the patriarch [nasi] is considered banned by all of Israel.” It was at this point that a frustrated Joseph turned to Abraham Maimonides in Fustat, putting to him five queries intended to clarify Hodaya’s status. The nasi’s actions may have been motivated in part by feelings of jealousy toward Joseph for having been elevated to a judgeship from which he himself had been ousted. In a letter to his father, the physician Abū Zikrī ben Elijah describes how a certain unnamed nasi was recently relieved of his duties as a judge in Alexandria when the governor who appointed him had fallen into disfavor.47 Abū Zikrī mentions the handsome government stipend that went along with the post and suggests that his father, the judge Elijah ben Zechariah, consider replacing the nasi. A combination of factors makes it likely that Abū Zikrī’s letter refers to the nasi Hodaya ben Jesse. The date, location, and unusual coincidence of a nasi serving as a judge in Alexandria all point to Hodaya ben Jesse’s turbulent period in that town. Moreover, Abū Zikrī’s insinuations about the immoral behavior of the nasi in question would seem to echo accusations leveled against Hodaya by Joseph. Abū Zikrī writes that the dismissed nasi had accepted bribes from both litigants to a case and had appropriated religious objects belonging to the synagogue. Such allegations resonate with the French rabbi’s description of Hodaya as driven by greed and in one instance demanding a fee of ten dinars to cancel a public ordinance. Simmering beneath this personal conflict were also deeper tensions between the religious traditions of the indigenous Jewish populations of the East on the one hand and those of the recent Jewish arrivals from France on the other. As Elchanan Reiner has observed, a crucial element in the controversy appears to have been a difference in the way the two groups understood the coercive power of the ban. While Eastern Jews viewed it as the prerogative of charismatic leaders like the nasi, Europeans saw it as a sanction entrusted only to the officially constituted leaders of the community.48 The conclusion of the episode bears out such an analysis, for in February 1234 eleven rabbis

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from Acre, more than half of European extraction, signed an edict prohibiting individuals from enacting bans on their own; from that point on they were only to be issued by courts made up of at least three religious authorities. The affair thus resulted in a campaign strongly endorsed by the European leadership to curtail use of the ban by representatives of charismatic authority and to safeguard it as an instrument of the community’s official leaders. But if personal grievances and regional variations in the application of the ban played a role in the dispute, so too did a cultural divide over what it meant to be a nasi. Joseph introduces his five queries to Abraham Maimonides with a review of Hodaya’s recent actions as well as the justification that Hodaya offered for them. He insists that in arrogating for himself powers restricted to the patriarch—in regarding himself, in other words, as equivalent to the nasi mentioned in rabbinic sources—Hodaya “seeks to invent things that are contrary to the laws of our faith and that cannot be.”49 Contemporary nesiʾim, he contends, are clearly not the same as the nasi that is discussed by the rabbis and therefore ought not to be given the same privileges. Are all of those known as nesiʾim today of the same status as the nasi mentioned in scripture and the Talmud, or not? According to my humble opinion, they have no special status except for the one who is appointed exilarch, from whom, according to the Talmud, we derive our authority. And there cannot be two exilarchs at one time, since they have said, “There is only one leader in a generation, and not two” [BT Sanhedrin 8a].50 Coming from Latin Europe, Joseph evidently had difficulty accepting the influence enjoyed in eastern lands by figures like Hodaya ben Jesse, figures whose status seemed to be based on popular respect for their lineage rather than official appointment or substantive qualifications. Joseph’s frustration on this point is particularly evident when he complains, “If one should argue . . . that [Hodaya] is the son and grandson of a nasi, [I would reply that] I am the son and grandson of scholars going back several generations.”51 Joseph not only challenged the identification of medieval nesiʾim with the nasi discussed in rabbinic texts, he also questioned the link between nasi status and Davidic ancestry. Citing the talmudic example of Eleazar ben ʿAzarya, a priest who was appointed to the office of nasi, Joseph concludes: “From this we learn that nasi status is not dependent on [membership in] the House of David, but rather on legal expertise.”52 Emanating as it does from a European



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unfamiliar with local practice in the East, Joseph’s question brings into clearer relief the distinctive contours of respect for Davidic ancestry among Jews in Muslim lands. His dismay at the situation in the Islamic world becomes all the more understandable when we bear in mind our earlier observations about the very different ways in which the title nasi was understood and employed in France and northern Spain. In his long reply to Joseph’s queries, Abraham Maimonides attempts to navigate delicately between the opposing sides. Despite his sympathy for Joseph’s difficult predicament and his seeming disapproval of the nasi’s arrogant and unjust behavior, Abraham is reluctant to criticize Hodaya. He acknowledges that the nasi became enraged and in his anger cursed Joseph and the rabbis of France, saying things “that cannot be written down.” But Abraham also reminds Joseph that “the honorable nasi” is “an old man with a reputation in his own land”—perhaps referring to Mosul—and urges forbearance since the nasi “grew up among scholars and possesses both wisdom and understanding.”53 “And there is no justification for disparaging him,” Abraham continues, “insofar as we are obligated to honor his family.”54 In referring to the obligation to honor the nasi’s family, Abraham assumes the role of a cultural mediator, attempting to offer an explanation for the status of contemporary nesiʾim that so puzzled the French rabbi. He goes on to explain the significance of Hodaya’s title in the context of local custom, underscoring once more the profound regard for the genealogy it signified in the East. These descendants of our master David are called nesiʾim because they are from the royal line and because the king himself is called nasi. But someone from David’s seed who is neither an exilarch nor the head of a yeshiva is designated a nasi only figuratively [kinuy be-ʿalma], insofar as he is from the royal line. Know that it is in this sense that we call their children nesiʾim too, in the sense that they are nesiʾim with respect to lineage [nesiʾim be-yiḥusam].55 Abraham introduces the notion of a “nasi with respect to lineage,” a category that he contrasts with that of the “nasi with respect to rank” (nasi bemaʿalato). This distinction is Abraham’s own, and reveals the prominence of the purely genealogical sense of the title nasi in his place and time. By positing such a distinction Abraham is able to concede Joseph’s point that contemporary Davidic dynasts (other than the exilarch) were not equivalent to the talmudic nasi, while at the same time providing an explanation for the popularity that they

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nevertheless enjoyed in the Near East. Abraham acknowledges that Hodaya’s status cannot be defended according to the rabbinic legal tradition, but he also points out that it has a basis in the local community’s respect for lineage. When read together, Joseph’s queries and Abraham’s responsum underscore the distinctive patterns of respect for Davidic ancestry that had come to prevail among Jews living in the Arabic-speaking East. Another textual witness to the situation reflected in Abraham Maimonides’ responsum is the draft of an early thirteenth-century letter of ­appointment for a raʾīs al-yahūd that is preserved in the monumental secretarial manual of the Islamic legal scholar and Egyptian chancery clerk, alQalqashandī.56 The document, which entrusts to the appointee administrative jurisdiction over “the Rabbanites, Karaites and Samaritans in Egyptian lands,” includes the following clause regarding his obligations to members of the Davidic line: “And as for the one who possesses a relationship of genealogy [luḥmat nasab] to David, peace be upon him, and who enjoys through him [David] the sanctity of genealogy [wa-lahu bihi ḥurmat nasab], he [the appointee] shall look after his privilege and take him as a companion with the most generous kindliness.”57 The inclusion of such a stipulation in an investiture letter for the most powerful Jewish official in the Ayyubid realm attests to the influence that the Davidic family enjoyed in Egyptian Jewish society. But what is of particular significance for our purposes is that the letter understands the importance of the Davidic line as essentially deriving from its ennobling genealogy. The classical overlap of claims of Davidic descent with the occupancy of specific offices of Davidic leadership seems to have all but vanished in this thirteenth-century formulary. Nesiʾim are quite simply those who can trace themselves back to King David. Written in the same period as Abraham Maimonides’ responsum to Joseph ben Gershom, the letter of appointment provides us with yet another glimpse of the way Davidic dynasts had come to enjoy a status that was principally oriented around a venerable genealogical claim.

A Noble Family The move toward a more genealogically based perception of the royal line in the East resulted in other shifts as well. Jews in the Middle Ages began, for instance, to think of the Davidic family as precisely that—a kinship group united by its descent from a common ancestor. Such a notion is implied, of



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course, in the various rabbinic traditions asserting that the exilarchs were descended from David. But in the Middle Ages this idea was expressed more directly, and its implications—in terms of how contemporary nesiʾim were related to one another, for example—taken far more seriously. The effects of such thinking are evident in the genealogical text with which we began this chapter: Abraham al-Raḥbī repeatedly emphasizes that his subject is worthy of honor because he is a member of “the noble House of David,” by which he refers not only to the anonymous nasi’s ancestors, but to his living relatives as well. And above we noted Abraham Maimonides’ insistence on the obligation to honor the family of the nasi Hodaya. While the vertical lines linking individual nesiʾim to their biblical progenitors always counted most, horizontal connections between nesiʾim, underscoring their membership in a collective defined by blood ties, were now acknowledged too. Indeed, as the ancestry of the nesiʾim assumed ever greater importance, it is only natural that they should have been increasingly seen as members of a wider Davidic clan or tribe. While the substitution of dāʾūdī for nasi emphasized most explicitly an individual’s vertical relationship to David, indirectly it also served to connect him to the many living claimants to the same ancestry. One can recognize this notion in a letter sent to the nasi Solomon ben Jesse in the winter of 1236 in which the recipient is styled the lord of the “the Davidic faction [al-ṭāʾifa al-dāwūdiyya],” a formula that implies his membership in a larger network of noble relatives.58 The notion of a family of Davidic descendants also emerges from memorial lists for Karaite nesiʾim preserved in the Geniza. A typical list of this type begins with the formula: “A fitting memorial . . . for the memory of the noble family, the family of the House of David, the nesiʾim.”59 And the Judeo-Arabic version of the story of Bustanay, which describes the illegitimate union of a seventh-century exilarch with a non-Jewish captive, takes aim at “the pedigree of the Davidic family [nasab al-dāwūdiyya]” as a whole.60 And when the Andalusian-born exegete Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1167) observes that the House of David is “a great and powerful family [mishpaḥa rabba ve-gedola]” that continues to flourish in his own day, he, too, expresses the new perception of the Davidic line as a descent group encompassing much more than just its office holding members.61 Finally, we may note an undated JudeoArabic letter from the Geniza addressed to Yefet ben Sasson that evinces the same idea when it refers to al-Nafīs the elder as “a branch of the prophetic, Davidic clan [farʿ al-ʿashīra al-nabawiyya al-dāwūdiyya].” 62 Nor were Jews the only ones to think along such lines. When the Arabic essayist al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868 or 869), discussing the love of homeland among

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various peoples, refers to the practice of “the children of Aaron and the family of David [āl Dāwūd]” to transfer the bodies of their deceased to Palestine for burial, he too seems to reflect a tendency to think of Jewish society in terms of groups that are delimited by ancestry.63 Strengthening an observation made above, al-Jāḥiẓ’s comment also suggests that this phenomenon was not restricted to the Davidic line alone and that descent from a biblical ancestor defined other collectives within Jewish society as well. The perception of the Davidic line as primarily a descent group is similarly reflected in an observation by the eleventh-century Muslim historian al-Ḥasan ibn al-Bannāʾ. Describing a conflict among Jewish notables in Baghdad over the appointment of a new exilarch in 1069, Ibn al-Bannāʾ explains to his readers that the two rival candidates are “from the descendants of David [min awlād Dāwūd].” 64

Geographic Distribution We now find ourselves in a better position to understand yet another distinguishing feature of the medieval House of David: its geographic dispersion. By the tenth century, members of the Davidic family had begun to move westward, appearing in towns in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain.65 And the painstaking work of three generations of Geniza historians makes it clear that by the thirteenth century a dramatic redistribution of the Davidic family had occurred as members of a lineage once localized in Baghdad were settled in every corner of the Islamic world. Their research demonstrates that in virtually every case in which we find a nasi during these centuries living outside Iraq it is possible to trace him back in just a few generations to an ancestor who once lived in Iraq.66 As we see below, this is one of several ways in which the genealogical records of the Davidic line, when read with a critical eye, can provide clues to significant changes in the conception and organization of the royal family during the Islamic period. In one respect, this diffusion of the Davidic line mirrored the political changes and economic pressures that were then reshaping Near Eastern society generally. A diminished capacity to administer effectively its outlying provinces had by the tenth century severely undermined the stability of the Abbasid ­caliphate. Formerly ruled by governors loyal to the Abbasid authorities, those ­far-flung territories now increasingly fell under the control of independent and sometimes hostile rulers. At the same time, economic disruptions impoverished the Abbasid heartland. One consequence of these developments was a migratory



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movement westward as merchants and intellectuals sought opportunities in the prosperous and newly autonomous lands along the Mediterranean.67 Jewish society, we know, was deeply affected by these transformations, and the migration of nesiʾim to communities outside Baghdad should perhaps be seen as yet another result of the ensuing redistribution of populations and economic power.68 Indeed, later Jewish legends would connect these developments explicitly as they described the way some local Muslim rulers, in asserting their independence from Baghdad, encouraged members of the Davidic family to visit or settle in their realms.69 From another perspective, however, the mobility of the nesiʾim can be viewed as a further consequence of the reconfiguration of the Davidic line that we have been examining. No longer defined by an authority structure, the royal family was able to move beyond its historic base of power in Iraq when conditions there became unfavorable. The Davidic family’s success in freeing itself, so to speak, from the Babylonian exilarchate, the institution that historically had defined it and geographically had anchored it, becomes clear when we consider the difficulties faced by various geʾonim as they struggled to maintain the allegiance of the communities under their jurisdiction in the same period. As desperate appeals to local Jewish communities indicate, their status remained intimately bound up with the survival of the yeshivot they headed. A telling illustration of this emerges from the correspondence of Samuel ben ʿEli, who wrote a number of letters to communities in Iraq and Syria urging them to continue to support his institution. In one of these Samuel offers the following rationale for the enduring significance of the yeshiva, and by implication his own authority: You are aware that the place of the yeshiva is the throne of the Torah, which represents Moses our teacher in every age. The word yeshiva derives from the verse, “And Moses sat (va-yeshev) to judge the people” [Exodus 18:13]. It is the place that is designated for instruction and for study of the Torah. . . . Thus the yeshiva is the place of Moses our teacher, and in it the Jewish faith is perfected. All who oppose it oppose the Torah, whose place it is, and oppose Moses our teacher, whose throne it is.70 By appealing to the holiness of the yeshiva, here so emphatically construed as a sacred site, in order to legitimize his status, Samuel reveals the degree to which geonic authority was linked to the prestige of specific geographies. Indeed, a

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long-standing argument on behalf the superiority of the traditions of the Iraqi yeshivot drew connections between their spiritual preeminence and their geographic location.71 The Davidic family, by contrast, enjoyed a prestige that had come to be embodied in the individual claimant, and that possessed meaning even in the absence of an institutional framework. Not restricted to a specific institution or by a particular geography, it could translate itself that much more easily to new physical surroundings. Jewish population centers across the Islamic world were thus exposed to living members of the royal line. In addition to Baghdad, important cities and towns such as Tabrīz, Mosul, Damascus, Aleppo, Ḥamā, Acre, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Fustat, Aden, and Qayrawān all played host either to individual nesiʾim or to dynasties, with the result that Jewish society as a whole during this period came into increasingly more intensive contact with members of the Davidic family. Letters from the Geniza reveal that nesiʾim also circulated through provincial towns in the Egyptian countryside: we hear of them, for instance, in Ashmūm, Damīra, al-Maḥalla, and Bilbays.72 We find nesiʾim as well in Daqūqa in Iraq and in Jām in northwestern Afghanistan.73 And this list comprises only those places where the presence of Davidic dynasts is explicitly reported. When we read, for instance, of a family of nesiʾim that traveled from Tabrīz to Cairo and back, or of another that moved from Mosul to Egypt, we know that they must have come in contact with a number of communities in the course of their travels, even though those places are not mentioned in our sources. Again, it must be emphasized that this stands in contrast to the situation in earlier periods during which the value of Davidic ancestry was restricted to the respective occupants of the patriarchate and the exilarchate, and the geographic distribution of members of the House of David was correspondingly limited to the locations of those offices. The momentousness of this new development is reflected in a series of medieval legends that focus on the circumstances under which a scion of the royal line arrived in a community outside of Iraq.74 As the value of Davidic lineage increased, so too did Jewish society’s overall exposure to descendants of the royal line.

Emphasizing the Links to King David Medieval sources also reveal a new and profound concern with documenting and publicizing the royal lineage of nesiʾim. As nobility of ancestry began to eclipse function as the source of the royal line’s significance, it is little wonder



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that medieval nesiʾim should have given new attention to identifying themselves explicitly with their biblical forebear. As we see in the next chapter, they accomplished this through a variety of strategies, the most dramatic of which was the creation of complete ancestor lists like the one copied down by Abraham al-Raḥbī. Another important mechanism involved naming children after figures from the biblical line of David. Such practices helped publicize the ancestral claim of the royal line and reinforced a public identity that was oriented around descent from King David. This concern is revealed in more modest ways, too, as, for example, when the nasi David ben Daniel acknowledges in a letter to a supporter “the kindness of the God of David our father.”75 Similar expressions asserting a direct familial tie to the royal line are to be found in letters by the exilarchs Hezekiah ben David and Daniel ben Ḥisday.76 Letters addressed to Davidic dynasts echo this motif as well. An illustrative example is a Judeo-Arabic missive sent to Daniel ben ʿAzarya by an unidentified supporter that is largely concerned with the consolidation of Daniel’s authority in the Fustat community.77 In discussing two separate matters, one in which the writer himself was involved and another involving the addressee, the letter draws analogies to episodes in the life of King David. Significantly, in both instances the writer is careful to identify the biblical monarch as Daniel’s ancestor ( jadduhu).78 A draft of a flowery letter to the nasi Hodaya ben Jesse reveals how another writer modified a conventional expression of religious piety in order to emphasize the genealogical connection between his addressee and King David.79 The missive, written by Joseph ben Obadiah in Syria, contains numerous corrections and revisions, some of a purely stylistic nature.80 Thus, in one instance the writer originally described the nasi with the phrase “perfect in wisdom and full of beauty [kelil ḥokhma u-male yofi],” but then evidently decided to switch the wording so that it should read instead “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty [male ḥokhma u-khelil yofi].” Another correction demonstrates how Joseph carefully revised his text to better flatter its recipient. Initially he included in his florid introduction the standard messianic wish that God should raise “the fallen tabernacle of David” during Hodaya’s lifetime. When revising his letter, however, Joseph apparently felt that it was important to acknowledge the nasi’s connection to King David in a more direct manner and accordingly changed the expression to read “the fallen tabernacle of David his father” (emphasis added). Karaite marriage contracts from Egypt, which typically include a special clause mentioning the nasi who served as the head of the Karaite community,

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exhibit a similar tendency. Once such document, written in Fustat in 1036 under the jurisdiction of Ṣemaḥ ben Asa, characterizes that nasi as “the descendant of the man of rest,” an allusion, on the basis of 2 Chronicles 22:9, to King Solomon.81 In similar fashion, a marriage contract drawn up in 1117 recalls the royal lineage of the the nasi Ḥisday ben Hezekiah ben Solomon when it speaks of “his virtuous fathers, the kings.”82 While clearly building on preexisting traditions about the Davidic ancestry of the family of exilarchs, such medieval strategies reflect a new investment in promoting and proving that lineage. Of particular significance for our purposes is recognizing the subtle shift this represents in the way claims to Davidic ancestry were now expressed, a transformation that has its roots in new attitudes about the importance of genealogy. As noted above, there is every reason to believe that exilarchs in late antiquity considered themselves to be the descendants of King David; indeed, the existence of such a family tradition is amply reflected in rabbinic writings. But there is no indication that they ever felt obliged to substantiate that claim by enumerating a sequence of ancestors that directly linked them to the royal line. The earliest recorded effort in that direction appeared around the beginning of the ninth century in Seder ʿolam zuṭa (The Lesser Order of the World).83 That text’s delineation of a sequence of Davidic descendants stretching from the biblical period to the end of the rabbinic era reflects not only the concern to link medieval nesiʾim with the Israelite king but a new preoccupation with complete and accurate genealogical record-keeping as well. That a continuous chain of Davidic descendants was not actually worked out until the Islamic period is further suggested by a surprising feature of the Davidic genealogies that were recorded between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, genealogies that build upon the sequence of ancestors first laid out in Seder ‘olam zuṭa. Unlike family trees that follow multiple descent lines and chart the relations between contemporary descendants of the same ancestor, Davidic genealogies generally trace ascent from son to father through only one individual in a given generation. The ancestor list copied by Abraham al-Raḥbī, which traces a continuous chain of ninety-nine ascendants, is in this respect typical. Discounting one rather late and problematic exception, all such ancestor lists for the Davidic line converge at a single medieval progenitor—the fabled exilarch Bustanay, who is alleged to have lived during the Islamic conquests of the seventh century.84 In other words, an identical sequence of ancestors stretching all the way from King David to the early Islamic period is shared by virtually all of the extant Davidic pedigrees, Rabbanite and Karaite, with



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significant differentiation occurring only in the generations that come after Bustanay. Leaving aside the many still unresolved questions concerning Bustanay’s identity and precise floruit, this fact would seem to indicate that the meticulous recording of Davidic lineage did not precede Bustanay’s day. If it had, we would surely expect to find genealogies of other, non-Bustanay branches of the family (besides the fourteenth-century exception mentioned above).85 The almost complete absence of Davidic lineages traceable to an ancestor other than Bustanay is all the more surprising given the well-known medieval allegation that Bustanay had improper sexual relations with a Persian slave-girl resulting in the irrevocable defilement of his entire progeny. The fact that the existing ancestor lists reflect a genealogical diversity for the Davidic family that goes back only as far as Bustanay would thus appear to support the conclusion that a significant reconceptualization of the Davidic line had indeed occurred sometime after the middle of the seventh century and was accompanied by a new emphasis on genealogical record keeping. The suspicious appearance of Bustanay in virtually all Davidic pedigrees may have troubled some medievals as well. And it was perhaps in partial explanation of this curiosity that a legend emerged according to which Bustanay, while still in his mother’s womb, was miraculously saved from a plague that left all other members of the Davidic family dead.86 As the story makes quite clear, all subsequent Davidic dynasts must therefore be directly descended from Bustanay. At one level, then, the story can perhaps be read as an acknowledgment of the genealogical anomaly noted above and an attempt to account for it. Another important way Davidic dynasts publicized their ancestry was by naming their sons after biblical figures from the line of King David. In the next chapter we explore this phenomenon in greater detail, but for the purposes of our present discussion it is sufficient to note that here too we can point to a general shift that seems to have occurred during the early Islamic centuries, subsequent to the period of Bustanay. Indeed, comparing the various extant Davidic genealogies one cannot help but notice a marked difference between the names of Bustanay’s ascendants and those borne by his descendants. Names appearing in the generations before Bustanay are generally in Aramaic with no evident connection to the biblical line of David. Those that appear in the generations after Bustanay, by contrast, are not only more frequently biblical Hebrew names, they are also much more likely to be names of persons easily identified with the House of David. What this ultimately suggests is that the shift toward more complete genealogical recordkeeping seems to have accompanied other developments that were similarly

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intended to enhance the perceived connection between individual members of the royal line and their mythical forebear.

Numeric Growth Another related consequence of the changes that we have been exploring is a perceptible rise in the number of individuals who claimed descent from King David in the Middle Ages. This is a natural corollary to our earlier observations. Inasmuch as the significance of a Davidic pedigree was tied less and less to particular offices of authority in the Jewish community and increasingly became a marker of prestige in and of itself, it stands to reason that there would have been greater incentive for individuals who could lay claim to a Davidic pedigree to actually do so. When the importance of Davidic ancestry was connected to specific authority structures, the benefits of being a son, grandson, or brother of an exilarch or patriarch were limited to the kinds of perks that relatives of powerful people generally can expect to enjoy through nepotism. But when Davidic ancestry acquired a meaningfulness in its own right, when cultural attitudes determined that being a “nasi with respect to lineage” was itself something of value, the son, grandson or brother of an exilarch became himself a legitimate member of the royal household in his own right. The new medieval conception of the Davidic family as a noble lineage can thus be seen to have encouraged and permitted its numeric growth. A perception of the expanded size of the Davidic family in the Middle Ages emerges from the work of previous generations of historians, who, however, did not fully appreciate its significance or consider it indicative of broader processes of change affecting the House of David.87 To give a sense of the numbers involved, I have compiled a list of dynasts who lived roughly between the years 950 and 1450 (see Appendix B). This is an admittedly broad swath of time, but the conservative approach I have used in tallying the nesiʾim more than makes up for any distortion resulting from such expansive temporal parameters. For the entire period in question I have counted a total of 107 male Davidic dynasts. By no means, however, does this figure approximate the actual number of nesiʾim who lived during those five centuries; rather, it merely represents a lower boundary, the actual number being certainly several times greater. Factoring in hints that daughters of nesiʾim were occasionally viewed as members of the biblical lineage as well, the Jewish community’s overall exposure to members of the royal line becomes all the more considerable.



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While there is no reliable data from earlier periods to compare with our tally, indirect evidence that the Davidic line had indeed undergone an expansion can be deduced again from critically considering the extant genealogical records of medieval nesiʾim. As noted above, those genealogies converge at Bustanay. The ancestor lists themselves, then, convey the image of a Davidic lineage that begins to divide into collateral descent lines only in the early Islamic period; only at that point does the genealogical record as a whole appear to acknowledge the existence of multiple dynasts in a single generation. And the further we move from Bustanay, the more ramified and numerous the lineage becomes. We need not ascribe an undue measure of accuracy to these genealogical sources in order to discern in this spread the echo of a progressive increase over time in the number of individuals laying claim to what was regarded as a legitimate Davidic pedigree. The variability that enters into the lineage after the time of Bustanay would thus point not only to more vigorous efforts to record Davidic ancestry, but to a growth in the overall number of recognized dynasts as well.

Comparisons with the Family of Muḥammad The changes noted above in the organization, localization, and self-presentation of the Davidic line resemble in certain respects transformations that occurred among the ʿAlids about a century earlier. By the late tenth century members of the ʿAlid dynasty had spread to towns across the Islamic East, where they succeeded in converting popular respect for their noble lineage into a variety of forms of status at the local level.88 The affinities between the two lines were also evident to medievals. Jews and Muslims alike began to conceive of the exilarchal dynasty as a Jewish equivalent to the family of the Prophet. In the introduction we observed the way both Benjamin of Tudela and Petaḥya of Regensburg suggestively paired the families of King David and Muḥammad in their enthusiastic descriptions of Jewish power in Baghdad. An equation of the two families is also evident in the specific honorifics that Jews began to use when referring to members of the Davidic line. The letter mentioned above that was addressed to the thirteenthcentury nasi Solomon ben Jesse is illustrative. In the opening lines of the missive, the writer, following epistolary custom, lavishes praise on his addressee in the midst of which he describes Solomon in rhyming prose as “the sharīf of the Jewish nation, and the sayyid of the Davidic faction [sharīf al-milla al-yahūdiyya

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wa-sayyid al-tāʾifa al-dāwūdiyya].”89 The combination of the terms sharīf and sayyid—each a common designation for members of the family of Muḥammad— unmistakably casts the House of David as the Jewish counterpart to the ahl albayt.90 A similar characterization of the Davidic family occurs in yet another letter addressed to the same Solomon ben Jesse, this one by a man named Peraḥya. The writer apologizes for not paying a visit to Solomon on the occasion of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, explaining that he was prevented from doing so because of the unexpected arrival in town of the nasi Josiah—quite possibly referring to a brother of Solomon with the same name. Peraḥya’s letter includes the wish that God might bring joy to the Jewish people “through the merit of his [Solomon’s] noble family [baytatihi al-sharīfa],” once again drawing on language most frequently used in connection with the family of Muḥammad.91 The tendency to think of the Davidic line as a family of Jewish ashrāf is also suggested by Abraham al-Raḥbī, who refers to the subject of his genealogical list as “his noble . . . presence [al-ḥaḍra al-sharīfa]” and to the nasi’s family as “this noble house [hadha al-bayt al-sharīf ].”92 The complementary notion of the Davidic dynasty as a family of sāda appears in medieval sources as well. Several letters addressed to Solomon ben Jesse refer to his “exalted . . . sayyidī court,” and the members of his family are described as “the sāda [who are] the nesiʾim.”93 While the terms sharīf and sayyid could also be used as generic titles of respect— sayyidunā (“my master”) is in fact a common form of address in Geniza ­letters—it is hard to avoid the conclusion that when used in conjunction with one another and in reference to a nasi such terms carried an added resonance implying a comparison with the family of Muḥammad. The impact of Islamic categories—in particular those pertaining to the ahl al-bayt—on the way Jews perceived the Davidic line is no less evident in the characterization of the Davidic family as a pure and prophetic family. Abraham al-Raḥbī invokes both of these notions as well, when, in lauding his subject, he refers to the latter’s “prophetic, Davidic” ancestry and describes his own affection for the “pure and unsullied [al-ṭāhir al-zakkī] house.”94 The purity of the Davidic line is also a central theme of the Bustanay story, where, however, the idea is roundly contested. The narrative’s insistence that Bustanay irreparably sullied the purity of the royal line should perhaps be read against the background of a growing tendency to view members of the Davidic family in precisely the terms suggested by al-Raḥbī.95 The conception of the Davidic line as a prophetic family is invoked by the author of the Geniza letter discussed above, who writes of his happiness at learning that his addressee had met with Nafīs the elder, someone he refers to as “a branch of the prophetic, Davidic family.”96



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And the same idea can also be found in a fragmentary text missing both its beginning and end, which has been described by its editor as “verses of praise” in honor of the exilarch Ḥisday ben David (fl. early twelfth century).97 Made up of a series of scriptural passages celebrating the Davidic family followed by a string of encomia to Ḥisday in particular, the text appears to be a panegyric introduction to a sermon given by the exilarch, for connecting the two parts is the formula “Hear what he explains, and heed what he says,” a declaration that a number of medieval sources depict as the formal opening to addresses by important communal officials.98 Ḥisday is eulogized in some fairly predictable ways; the text refers to him as, for instance, “the crown of our heads,” “our king,” and “our nasi.” But it also employs a less-than-obvious formulation when at one point it describes him as “the diadem of the nesiʾim and the offspring of prophets.” In the Islamic tradition David is, of course, a prophet. But when medieval Jews referred to the Davidic dynasty as a “prophetic family,” more was involved than simply the recasting of the Jewish David in an Islamic mold. That, to be sure, is part of the story; but the real point of reference was undoubtedly Muḥammad, whose descendants constitute the prophetic family par excellence in Muslim society. The Jews’ characterization of the Davidic line as prophetic thus entailed a double transposition: reassigning David a role that matched his status in the Islamic tradition, but thereby ultimately setting up an equivalence between his family and that of the Prophet Muḥammad. There is good reason to believe that when medieval Jews conceived of the Davidic line in such terms they were well aware of their significance in contemporary Islamic society. Jews living in Egypt during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for example, would have been exposed to the ritual commemoration of the Fatimid rulers’ membership in the ahl al-bayt on the one hand, and to the popular veneration of members of the Prophet’s family that developed during the period of Fatimid rule on the other.99 Jews had direct contact with members of the ashrāf, too. Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk, for instance, refers to a religious discussion in which Maimonides and the sharīf Abū alQāsim al-Ḥalabī were among the participants.100 A fragmentary Judeo-Arabic text, which has been identified as part of the “Account of Rabbi Nathan haBavli,” speaks to the Jews’ familiarity with the special honor accorded to the ahl al-bayt. The source contains biographical sketches of the tenth-century Jewish merchant Neṭira and his two sons, Sahl and Isḥāq. In its laudatory description of Sahl the text emphasizes his generosity toward those in need, including the poor among the Muslim population. The text goes on to note

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that in his magnanimity “he also sends money to Kūfa, which he disburses among the ʿAlids and the sons of Hāshim”—a reference to two groups that claimed status as the ahl al-bayt.101 Clearly intended to cast Sahl in a positive light, the text reveals that Jews indeed understood the sanctity associated with membership in the Prophet’s family, and moreover suggests that Sahl’s actions would have been perceived as commendable. A Judeo-Arabic text from the Geniza concerning the family of ʿAlī provides still further evidence of the way such ideas were able to penetrate Jewish society.102 Jews were also familiar with the kinds of honorifics that were customarily bestowed upon the ashrāf. This is revealed by a long letter sent in the year 1161 by the exilarch Daniel ben Ḥisday to Nethanel ha-Levi ben Moses.103 Daniel’s missive was written in support of Nethanel—a candidate for the office of gaʾon of the Palestinian yeshiva then located in Fustat—at a time when Samuel ben ʿEli, the head of the Baghdad yeshiva, was trying to assert his own jurisdictional authority over the Egyptian institution. Daniel confirms ­Nethanel’s appointment as gaʾon and justifies his intervention in the matter by arguing that the privilege of appointing religious functionaries in Egypt is a hereditary right that belongs exclusively to the family of the exilarchs. In defending his actions, Daniel also appeals to his good standing with the caliph al-Mustanjid (d. 1170), whom he identifies using a string of epithets traditionally applied to the Abbasid rulers. Reminiscent of the descriptions of nesiʾim noted above, Daniel’s letter refers to the caliph’s “holy, sublime, imāmī, prophetic station [al-mawāqif al-muqaddasa al-ʿāliyya al-imāmiyya alnabawiyya].” An internal Jewish communication, Daniel’s missive demonstrates that Jews were conversant with the kinds of formulas used to acknowledge the status of the Abbasid caliphs as members of the ahl al-bayt. No doubt, when they applied the same terms to members of the Davidic dynasty, the implicit comparison of the two lines would have been readily grasped. But Jews were not the only ones who identified the Davidic line with the family of Muḥammad. A number of Islamic traditions about the raʾs al-jālūt indicate that Muslims too sought an analog to the ahl al-bayt in the House of David.104 Such traditions were particularly prevalent among Shīʿīs, who invoked the loyalty of the Jews to their own sacred dynasty as a way of critiquing the Sunnīs’ betrayal of the ʿAlid imāms.105 A particularly revealing example of this genre depicts an exchange between Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾa lī, a supporter of ʿAlī, and an unnamed exilarch. According to the text, Abū al-Aswad reports that the exilarch challenged him with the observation that “there are seventy generations between me and David, yet when the Jews see me they



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give me honor and recognize my status. But as for you, there was only one generation between you and your prophet before you killed his offspring!”106 And in a critical twist on this association, the Zaydī al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm describes the Davidic line as a dynasty in possession of a wasiyya—a prophetic inheritance ascribed in Twelver Shīʿī sources to the ʿAlid imāms—and notes the Jews uncompromising devotion to the principle of leadership by the descendants of a prophet. In this instance the Jews would seem to be a foil for the Zaydīs’ Twelver Shīʿī rivals. As Steven Wasserstrom notes, these stories pivot on the recognition of “a homology between [the] Alid hereditary line of communal authority and the Davidic royal lineage of the Jews.” Viewing these associations as instances of a broader biblicist orientation among Shīʿīs, he emphasizes the way in which the Davidic line validated the claims of the ʿAlid imāms. “Certainly for the anxious imams,” he writes, “who were striving for legitimacy, the presence of the Exilarchs, long settled into their official status, lent further impetus to the imams’ long-standing inclination to analogize the two religious leaderships.”107 Yet if it can be argued that the analogizing of the two lines served the interests of the imāms, it also appears to have served the interests of the Jews, who seem to have taken particular pride in the notion that they too were ennobled by a sacred and prophetic lineage.

Reverberations of Genealogical Consciousness The changing perceptions of the Davidic line outlined above occurred in the context of a broader concern with ancestry in medieval Jewish society, evidence of which can be found in a wide range of sources. Of particular note is the way medieval Jews appear to have taken an interest in the genealogies of earlier generations, providing individuals in the past with the same kinds of pedigrees that they were fashioning for themselves. An intriguing illustration of this tendency is a Geniza manuscript that contains a genealogy of Ezra in which the biblical figure’s lineage is exhaustively traced back to Adam through forty-two generations of ascendants (Figure 2).108 While all of the names in the ancestor list come from biblical verses, the underlying scriptural sources were of necessity edited and recombined in order to create the continuous pedigree that appears on the manuscript page. That the genealogy is constructed out of preexisting scriptural material should not, therefore, obscure the fact that in its present form it constitutes an altogether new creation, one with striking similarities to the kinds of ancestor lists that medieval Jews

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Figure 2. Genealogy of the biblical Ezra, tracing his descent from Adam through forty-two consecutive generations. In Hebrew, n.d. Halper 478. Reproduced courtesy of the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

produced in order to link themselves to the very origins of humanity. As we see in the next chapter, Jews and Muslims placed tremendous value on pedigrees exhibiting both the continuity and the exhaustive comprehensiveness that are reflected in this list. The creation of such a genealogy for Ezra may have been motivated by more than pure academic interest. The dynasty of priestly geʾonim that controlled the Palestinian yeshiva during much of the eleventh century claimed Ezra as one of its illustrious forebears. Moreover, we learn of this particular ancestral claim from the “Scroll of Evyatar,” a text that seeks to discredit the ancestral claims of the dynasty’s archrival, the nasi David ben Daniel. It is therefore possible that the creation of an ancestor list for Ezra was no mere scholarly exercise, but rather part of an effort to promote and document a priestly lineage that could adequately compete with the impressive genealogies flaunted by members of the House of David. Medieval Jews exhibited a new interest in the genealogies of rabbinic sages as well. Saʿadya Gaʾon reports that while in Mosul he was asked to clarify the



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ancestry of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi and in response composed a short treatise entitled Toledot rabenu ha-qadosh.109 The same curiosity may also help account for a largely overlooked part of the introduction to Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah. The third chapter of that essay is dedicated to “what is known concerning the genealogies [ansāb] of the sages of the Mishnah.”110 Tellingly, Maimonides divides his subjects into three groups only: those who were descended from Hillel and can accordingly be traced back to King David; those who are identified as priests and therefore can be traced to Aaron; and those who are identified as the descendants of gentiles. “The rest,” he writes, “are Israelites about whose genealogy nothing is known.” Though brief, the chapter speaks to the importance of nasab for medieval Jews and the way it could influence and organize their view of previous generations. It also reveals something about the specific meaning that genealogy acquired—namely, reliable information that above all else demonstrated an individual’s descent from his biblical forebears. Sources that shed light on the kinds of books Jews were reading provide further evidence of interest in the genealogies of past generations. A booklist from the Geniza, written in the hand of the copyist Joseph ben Jacob (fl. late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries), reviews the contents of several chapters from an unidentified historiographical work. Among those listed are chapters devoted to the genealogy of the sons of Noah, the genealogy of the sons of Ishmael, and the genealogies of the tribes of Judah and Simeon.111 Another such inventory mentions a booklet containing a genealogy of biblical kings.112 And in a famous passage in the introduction to his commentary on the tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin, Maimonides disparages various pursuits that in his eyes constitute a waste of time, among which he includes reading books on “the genealogies of the Arabs [ansāb al-ʿarab].”113 Maimonides’ comment suggests that Jews’ curiosity about genealogical matters extended beyond the confines of Jewish society and Jewish history; it also illustrates how such concerns could have been nourished by direct contact with the surrounding Arab-Islamic cultural environment.

Conclusion The developments we have examined suggest that by the eleventh century both the role of Davidic lineage and the importance ascribed to it in Jewish society had undergone substantial revision. The number of those claiming royal descent had, by that time, grown, a change that is connected, I suggest, with a new

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perception that Davidic ancestry possessed intrinsic and not merely instrumental value. Associated with these shifts, Jewish society also became increasingly concerned with mapping out ancestral claims and providing formerly vague assertions of descent with more rigorous documentation. Genealogical lists were created in order to address this new need, and they did so by delineating in sometimes extraordinary detail the discrete links by which individuals were connected to their noble forebears. The rethinking of the Davidic line also entailed the identification of its members with the ahl al-bayt, a perspective again grounded in the notion of a noble lineage’s inherent value. These developments indicate not only a shift in the way the Davidic line was perceived within Jewish society, but also a new emphasis on the importance of genealogy more broadly. Such genealogical concerns can be detected in other realms of Jewish cultural activity as well. And while Jewish tradition had genealogical resources of its own that could be pressed into service, the impetus for this broader transformation seems to have come from the nasaboriented culture of the surrounding Muslim society. Scholars have long recognized the decisive ways in which Islam shaped medieval Jewish culture. Summarizing the dynamic changes that took place in Jewish society between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, S. D. Goitein observed: “Every aspect of what we regard today as Judaism—the synagogue service and the Siddur, law and ritual, theology and ethics, the text of the Bible, the grammar and vocabulary of the Hebrew language—was consolidated, formulated and canonized during that age.”114 The material considered in this chapter suggests that to the familiar disciplines and realms of cultural activity enumerated by Goitein we may add yet another: a vigorous interest in genealogy.

Chapter 2

“The Truth of the Pedigree”: Documenting Origins and the Public Performance of Lineage

In an entry on the sharīf Idrīs ibn al-Ḥasan al-Idrīsī, in his biographical dictionary of important people associated with the town of Aleppo, the chronicler Ibn al-ʿAdīm (d. 1262) recounts an incident that demonstrates the significant social implications of distinguished ancestry in medieval Islamic society.1 This al-Idrīsī—not to be confused with his more famous contemporary and namesake, the author of an important work of descriptive geography—was, according to Ibn al-ʿAdīm, a native of Egypt who settled in Syria, where until his death in about 1213 or 1214 he earned a living as a copyist. Though Ibn alʿAdīm acknowledges his subject’s modest accomplishments as a belletrist, historian, and poet, he took a dim view of his lifestyle, describing him as “immoral, addicted to wine, and given to debauchery.” Most of Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s entry, however, is devoted to al-Idrīsī’s unfortunate run-in with the eminent Shīʿī genealogist Muḥammad ibn al-Asʿad al-Jawwānī (d. 1192).2 Traveling in the entourage of the Ayyubid sultan Salaḥ al-Dīn, al-Jawwānī came to Aleppo in the summer of 1188, where he soon became something of a celebrity among the local elites for his expertise in genealogical matters. “When I arrived in Aleppo,” he recalls in a notice that is reproduced by Ibn al-ʿAdīm, “its notables repeatedly visited me and called on me, assuring me of the genuineness of their genealogies, and seeking to have their worth publicly demonstrated.” Al-Idrīsī was apparently one of those making calls. As his designation as a sharīf indicates, al-Idrīsī claimed membership in the ahl al-bayt, alleging that he was a direct descendant of the Prophet’s grandson al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī. Like the others fawning over al-Jawwānī, al-Idrīsī, too, hoped to have his ­respected pedigree validated by the visiting authority. But al-Jawwānī—a

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professed member of the ahl al-bayt himself—viewed al-Idrīsī’s genealogical claim as unsubstantiated, and the persistent solicitations soon became uncomfortable. “He began to visit my majlis,” al-Jawwānī complains in the text reproduced by Ibn al-ʿAdīm, “trying to learn what I really thought, and seeking to have verified what would always remain untrue.” Ultimately, however, alJawwānī let his opinion be known, pronouncing al-Idrīsī to be a genealogical “pretender” (dāʿī). In a coda to this episode, the historian Ibn al-ʿAdīm adds that al-Idrīsī, understandably insulted, vowed to get even by publicly discrediting al-Jawwānī’s lineage. Ibn al-ʿAdīm promises to review the substance of the riposte in his entry on al-Jawwānī, but unfortunately that volume of his work is no longer extant.3 Al-Idrīsī’s encounter with al-Jawwānī sheds light on the important public role genealogy played in Muslim society, revealing both the emphasis that was placed on its demonstrability, as well as the degree to which it could shape one’s social identity. As a significant determinant of status, ancestry was very much a public matter, individuals frequently going to great lengths to display their own lineage and to challenge that claimed by their opponents. In al-Idrīsī’s case material benefits were probably also at stake. Had his Ḥasanid genealogy been certified, al-Idrīsī would have been entitled to have his name registered with the naqīb al-ashrāf (the marshal of the nobility), the local representative of the descendants of Muḥammad, in Aleppo.4 When it first appeared in the early years of Abbasid rule, the office of naqīb existed only in Baghdad; but by the ninth century it had been established in a number of important cities. As set forth in two eleventh-century legal works, the functions of the naqīb included preserving the privileges and public prestige of the ahl al-bayt as well as keeping false claimants from deceitfully entering its ranks.5 To this end, the naqīb—who was himself a member of Muḥammad’s family—was expected to keep track of the genealogies of the ahl al-bayt, to make sure that its members comported themselves in a fitting manner, and to see that they concluded marriages appropriate to their elevated station in society. But perhaps most significant, the naqīb also supervised the distribution of government stipends to those who were officially recognized as legitimate descendants of the Prophet.6 To be registered as a sharīf thus meant not only acknowledged status but a state pension as well. But if al-Idrīsī’s confrontation with Ibn al-Jawwānī needs to be understood in light of the functions and prerogatives safeguarded by the office of the naqīb al-ashrāf, it also reflects a cultural context that extended beyond the boundaries of Islamic society and its social and religious institutions. Taking



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such a broad view, their conflict is an illuminating backdrop to the efforts of Jewish nesiʾim in precisely the same region and time period—nesiʾim, who, as we have already noted, were occasionally honored by their coreligionists with the titles sharīf and sayyid—to publicize their genealogical ties to King David. As noted in the previous chapter, Jewish perceptions of the Davidic line had undergone a significant transformation by the eleventh century, evolving in response to the importance of ancestry in Arab-Islamic society in general and the special status of the ahl al-bayt in particular. That transformation in turn engendered a new set of social practices within Jewish society oriented around the public display of ancestry and the special value of a complete and demonstrable pedigree. For Jews, no less than for Muslims, status had come to be defined in terms of nasab. It should come as little surprise, then, to find that similar genealogical practices were embraced in the two societies as well. In this chapter we examine more closely the performative aspects of genealogy’s renewed importance in Jewish society, focusing on the mechanisms that were used to document ancestry and construct a public identity based upon it. While the following discussion deals mainly with those who laid claim to a Davidic pedigree, the practices described in fact speak to changes in the valuation of genealogy within Near Eastern Jewish society as a whole. Accordingly, wherever possible I point out instances in which the strategies under consideration were implemented by other segments of the Jewish population, if not always with the same intensity or consistency as among the nesiʾim.

Genealogies The Middle Ages witnessed not only the expansion of the parameters of the House of the David, but a more determined interest in publicizing and documenting descent from the ancient monarch. Among the clearest expressions of this new concern are the elaborate genealogical lists that begin to appear in about the tenth century, lists that explicitly chart a vertical line of male ancestors reaching back to King David if not, as in Abraham al-Raḥbī’s list, considerably further. That bona fide descendants of King David could be found in the post-biblical period is, as we have already observed, affirmed in rabbinic sources predating the Islamic period. Moreover, those sources also refer, though with surprising infrequency, to genealogical documentation backing up that alleged ancestral claim. The Palestinian Talmud, as we noted in the previous chapter, reports that a genealogical scroll was found in Jerusalem in

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which it was established that Hillel was a descendant of King David.7 But if rabbinic sources such as this do speak, on occasion, of ancestor lists or genealogical scrolls, remarkably, they never betray any knowledge of their actual contents, of the specific ancestors through whom someone like Hillel might have “proven” his membership in the Davidic line. While biblical ancestry is sometimes asserted in rabbinic sources, never is it demonstrated in the meticulous manner in which it would be during the Middle Ages.8 As noted, the first Jewish attempt to trace the Davidic line beyond the genealogies preserved in the Hebrew Bible is found in Seder ʿolam zuṭa.9 Written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, the work has been dated to late eighth- or early ninth-century Iraq. In format it is a brief account of world history structured according to an underlying sequence of approximately eighty-five generations, which follows the line of King David and is primarily, but not exclusively, patrilineal. The sequence begins with Adam and, ­following the biblical narrative, enumerates thirty-three generations of his descendants, down to King David. After King David, the sequence follows the Davidic kings in the Bible, followed by a list of Babylonian exilarchs, beginning with Shealtiel, the son of King Jehoiachin, and concluding with the descendants of Mar Zuṭra, the son of an exilarch by the same name. According to the chronicle’s chronology, the latter lived in the early sixth century ce, almost three hundred years before the time of the text’s redaction. Brief historical notices are introduced into this sequence in their appropriate place. As was first pointed out by Leopold Zunz, the sequence of Davidic dynasts after King Jehoiachin—generally regarded as the work’s most original contribution—is altogether unreliable: names of members of the Davidic family who are listed as contemporaries in 1 Chronicles 3 have, at various points, simply been reworked to form a linear succession.10 Names of exilarchs mentioned in rabbinic literature have been incorporated into this section as well. Despite its dubious historicity, the chronicle is important insofar as it constitutes the first known attempt to provide a continuous genealogy of the Davidic line, and one that critically traverses the temporal gap between the biblical and rabbinic periods. As such, it appears to be, at least in part, an attempt to substantiate the tradition that the Babylonian exilarchs were indeed direct descendants of King David. The general consensus among historians is, in fact, that Seder ʿolam zuṭa was mostly likely composed during the Islamic period with the goal of defending the exilarchs against the attacks of rivals who called into question the legitimacy of their purported pedigree. It is, in the words of one historian, an attempt to “fabricate . . . a precise lineage connecting the Exilarch with the last kings of Judah.”11



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By means of the list embedded in Seder ʿolam zuṭa’s narrative, nesiʾim living in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries would ultimately be able to trace themselves back to their mythic forebear as well. So valuable, in fact, was the genealogical sequence devised by its editors that it was incorporated into practically every subsequent effort to prove an individual’s descent from King David in the Middle Ages, the genealogy copied by Abraham al-Raḥbī being no exception.12 For the modern historian Seder ʿolam zuṭa is valuable as well, offering as it does a glimpse of the beginnings of the broad concern with genealogy that forms the subject of this book. Accepting the view that the text provides a defense of the exilarchate’s ancestry, the circumstances surrounding Seder ʿolam zuṭa’s composition point to a new orientation toward genealogical precision in Near Eastern Jewish society. The vague assertions of the exilarchate’s Davidic descent that were once sufficient had, by the beginning of the ninth century, apparently begun to look rather flimsy and unpersuasive. Thus, in offering a detailed account of the exilarchate’s Davidic origins, Seder ʿolam zuṭa bears witness not only to the challenges faced by the medieval exilarchate but also to deeper changes in Jewish society’s cultural expectations. But if Seder ʿolam zuṭa succeeds in tracing the Davidic line well past the end of the biblical narrative, it is still not a personal list of ancestors of the sort that medieval dynasts would eventually rely upon when they tried to promote themselves as legitimate members of the House of David. Though a sequence of ancestors underlies its narrative structure, it is not a genealogy per se, and ancestry ultimately remains subordinate to overarching issues of historiography in the text. This is apparent from the fact that Seder ʿolam zuṭa frequently includes the names of individuals who succeeded their brothers, as, for example, is the case with kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim.13 Rather than a genealogical history, then, Seder ʿolam zuṭa is probably best characterized as a dynastic history, a history concerned with tracing the origins and succession of Davidic rule, rather than Davidic lineage. And while Seder ʿolam zuṭa offers a general defense of the continuity of the Davidic line in the post-biblical period—considerably lengthening the “trunk” of the family tree—it is not designed to document any particular medieval dynast’s complete pedigree. Like Seder ʿolam zuṭa, Kitāb al-taʾrīkh also structures national history according to a sequence of communal leaders. Composed in Arabic and completed in the year 944, the text is divided into seven sections, each of which covers a distinct historical period.14 Sections one through five (from Adam to Noah; Noah to Abraham; Abraham to Moses; Moses to David; and David to Ezra) are primarily concerned with delineating a precise chronology of biblical history. Insofar as

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these sections review significant portions of the biblical narrative they contain information that could be used to recreate the genealogy of the Davidic line, but the text itself does not do so. Section six—“from the last of the prophets to the last of the Davidic dynasts”—is in fact a review of the various dynasties and empires that controlled Palestine from the beginning of the Hellenistic period. Those discussed include the Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, and Sasanians. Towards the end of this section the work’s focus on Davidic leadership becomes more pronounced as two separate lists of exilarchs are introduced. The first, allegedly coinciding with the period beginning one hundred years before the arrival of the Greeks in Syria and culminating with Roman-Byzantine dominion, commences with Pedaiah the son of King Jehoiachin and enumerates the names of fifteen generations of his descendants, each of which is followed by an abbreviation for the word ibnuhu (“his son”). The second list, concurrent with the period of Persian (Sasanian) rule, contains ten additional names beginning with Huna and concluding with Kahana. Unlike the previous list, the names in this sequence are not explicitly identified as forming a father-to-son succession. Taken as a consecutive series, the two lists generally follow the innovative, post-biblical record of the Davidic line first introduced in Seder ʿolam zuṭa. Section seven, the shortest of all, begins with the following brief notice: A total of four hundred and twenty-five years are between that time and now. Its breakdown is as follows: one hundred and one years remaining of Persian rule in Syria and three hundred and twenty-four . . . years for the children of Ishmael, son of Abraham. . . . Among the Jews there were twelve generations of exilarchs, and their names are . . . What follows—concluding this section and bringing the work as a whole to a close—is a third list of exilarchs that begins with the names Huna and Nathan and ends with David ben Zakkay, the famous tenth-century exilarch. As with the previous list, these names too are not explicitly identified as constituting a lineal succession from father to son. David ben Zakkay also appears at the end of a list of eighty-five or so names (some individuals seem to have more than one) that introduces a short medieval text on the prerogatives and functions of the Iraqi yeshivot.15 And a similar list appears in a Bible codex that was copied by Elisha ben Abraham ben Benvenisti in 1382. Comprising the names of forty individuals, it starts with Jehoiachin and concludes with the exilarch Ḥisday.16 While each of these three sources follows the Davidic line significantly beyond the point



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where Seder ʿolam zuṭa breaks off, they are all structured in essentially the same way as that text, beginning with a biblical predecessor and moving forward chronologically. And like Seder ʿolam zuṭa, they also appear to be designed primarily as lists of communal leaders rather than lists of any particular individual’s ancestors. But if the chronicle scheme of Seder ʿolam zuṭa continued to inform elaborations of the Davidic lineage such as these, it would also give rise to a new type of ancestor list, one that would be both more individualized and more emphatically genealogical. The first unambiguously personal ancestor lists linking historical figures to King David pertain to individuals from the late ninth century, though the genealogies themselves may have been supplied at a later date. One of these is preserved in the eleventh-century chronicle al-Athār al-bāqiya by the Muslim polymath al-Bīrūnī (d. ca. 1050). Al-Bīrūnī took a particular interest in Jewish matters, and in a section on the calendrical differences between Rabbanites and Karaites cites the genealogy of ʿAnan ben Daniel, apparently confusing him with his great-grandfather—the purported founder of the Karaite sect— ʿAnan ben David.17 Al-Bīrūnī, who composed his chronicle in about the year 1000, writes that ʿAnan ben Daniel “lived between 100 and 110 years ago,” thus placing him in the second half of the ninth century, a date that modern scholars have tended to endorse.18 The genealogy, which commences with ʿAnan and continues back to David, enumerates forty-six individual names (a few of which appear to be corruptions of names appearing in Jewish lists— presumably a result of their transliteration into Arabic): ʿAnan, son of Daniel, son of Saul, son of ʿAnan, son of David, son of Ḥisday, son of Kafnay, son of Bustanay, son of Ḥunamar, son of Nūshrā, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Shephatiah, son of Ḥuna, son of Nathan, son of Abba Mar, son of Rabbana ʿAqiva, son of Shebaniah, son of Zakkay, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Shephatiah, son of Yoḥanan, son of Risūsiyān, son of ʿAnan, son of Jeshaiah, son of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of ʿAquv, son of Ḥananya, son of Basudiya, son of Maʿasiah, son of Pedaiah, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, son of Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, son of Ahaziah, son of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, son of Abijah, son of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, son of David. A similar genealogy, presumably for one of ʿAnan ben Daniel’s contemporaries, was found among the Geniza manuscripts. Appearing at the conclusion of

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Figure 3. A fragmentary genealogy of the late ninth-, early tenth-century nasi Ṣemaḥ ben Josiah, delineating twenty-one generations of his ancestors. In Hebrew, n.d. Cambridge University Library, T-S 12.138r.

a list of emendations to the biblical text, the pedigree is introduced by the heading: “These are the families of the House of David.” What follows is the genealogy of Ṣemaḥ ben Josiah, designated “the nasi and head of the yeshiva.” The list, according to which Ṣemaḥ was himself a great-grandson of ʿAnan ben David (and therefore also a cousin of ʿAnan ben Daniel), begins with Ṣemaḥ’s name and carries his lineage back twenty-one generations before the manuscript breaks off (Figure 3).19 In both ancestor lists, names appearing in Seder ‘olam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh play a crucial role in linking the subject to his biblical forebears. But while these pedigrees appear to imitate the content of those chronicles, they follow a very different format—one that became increasingly popular over time and was highly suited to the needs of a society that attached particular importance to the merits of an individual’s ancestry. For, unlike the sequences underlying Seder ʿolam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, these lists are constructed as elaborations on an individual’s name through a significantly expanded series of patronymics. Thus, not only are they oriented in the opposite direction as the chronicle-like materials discussed above, they are, as a consequence, decidedly individualized as well.



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The trickle of personal genealogies from the ninth century becomes, if not a flood, at the very least a steady current in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. A fragmentary genealogy from the Geniza records the lineage of an eleventh- or twelfth-century nasi whose name has unfortunately been torn away.20 The dimensions of the manuscript and the few legible names in it enable us to conclude, however, that, like the genealogies of ʿAnan ben Daniel and Ṣemaḥ ben Josiah, this list too began with its subject’s name and proceeded in reverse chronological order through a series of patronymics familiar from sources like Kitāb al-taʾrīkh and Seder ʿolam zuṭa. The elaborate genealogy copied down by Abraham al-Raḥbī sometime in the twelfth century is similarly arranged. Torn at the top and thus missing the personal name of the nasi for whom it was composed, the ancestor list runs as follows: . . . son of . . . Zakkay . . . son of Joseph, son of Zakkay, son of ʿAzarya, son of Solomon, son of Josiah, son of Zakkay, son of Judah, son of David, son of Judah, son of Isaac, son of Solomon, son of Ḥisday, son of [Ba]radoy, son of Bustani, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Kafna[y], son of Ḥunamar, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Ḥananya, son of Meremar, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Rav Kahana, son of Nathan, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Avimar, son of ʿAqiva, son of Nehemiah, son of Nathan de-Ṣuṣita, son of ʿAnan, son of Shaphat, son of Yoḥanan, son of ʿAquv, son of Jacob, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Shekhanya, son of Obadiah, son of Jeshaiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Berechiah, son of Ḥananya, son of Meshullam, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Pedaiah, son of Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, son of Amon, son of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, son of Amaziah, son of Jehoash, son of Amaziah, son of Ahaziah, son of Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, son of Abijah, son of Rehoboam [son o]f Solomon, son of David . . . son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadab, son of Ram, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, son of ­A rpachshad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalalel, son of Kenan, son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of the first man—peace upon all of them.

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And from roughly the same period as al-Raḥbī’s text is the pedigree of the Karaite nasi Solomon ben David (Figure 4). It too comprises a sequence of patronymics—fifty-two in all—stretching back as far as King David: Thus wrote Solomon the nasi, son of David the nasi, son of Ḥisday the nasi, son of Hezekiah the great nasi, . . . son of the great nasi . . . Solomon . . . , son of the great nasi David, . . . son of the great nasi Boaz . . . , son of . . . the great nasi Jehoshaphat . . . son of the great nasi Josiah . . . son of . . . the great nasi Saul . . . , son of . . . the great nasi . . . ʿAnan, . . . son of . . . David the nasi, son of Ḥisda, son of Bustani, son of Ḥanina, son of Kafna, son of Abamar, son of Rabbana . . . , son of Rabbana ­Nehemiah, son of Nathan de-Ṣuṣita, son of ʿAnan, son of Shaphat, son of Yoḥanan, son of ʿAquv, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Obadiah, son of Jeshaiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Berechiah, son of Ḥananya, son of Meshullam, son of Zerubbabel, son of Pedaiah, son of Shealtiel, son of Jehoiachin the king, son of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, son of Amon, son of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, son of Amaziah, son of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, son of Abijah, son of Rehoboam, son of Solomon the king . . . son of David, peace upon him.21 The genealogy of Sar Shalom ben Phineas, who likely held the post of exilarch in the first part of the fourteenth century (see below), is recorded in a Bible codex that was copied in Tripoli (Libya) in 1312 by Shem Tov ben Abraham ben Gaʾon. Proceeding backward, it records its namesake’s descent from King David and Adam through an unbroken chain of ninety ancestors.22 This is a copy of the twenty-four books . . . belonging to . . . Sar Shalom the nasi . . . , son of . . . Phineas, son of Josiah, son of Judah, son of Uzziah, son of Solomon the nasi, son of Zakkay, son of Judah, son of David, son of Isaac, son of Solomon, son of Ḥisday, son of Bustani, son of Kafnay, son of Mar Hana, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Ḥanina, son of Meremar, son of Zuṭra, son of Kahana, son of Ḥuna, son of Abba, son of ʿUqba, son of Nehemiah, son of Nathan de-Ṣuṣita, son of ʿAnan, son of Shaphat, son of Yoḥanan, son of Jacob, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Shekhanya, son of Obadiah, son of Jeshaiah, son of Ḥisday, son of Berechiah, son of Ḥanina, son of

Figure 4. The genealogy of the late twelfth-century Karaite nasi Solomon ben David. In Hebrew, n.d. Leiden University Library, MS. Leiden Or. 4790, fol. 111b.

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Meshullam, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of King Jehoiachin, son of King Jehoiakim, son of King Josiah, son of King Amon, son of King Manasseh, son of King Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz, son of King Jotham, son of King Uzziah, son of King Amaziah, son of King Joash, son of King Ahaziah, son of King Jehoram, son of King Jehoshaphat, son of King Asa, son of King Abijah, son of King Rehoboam, son of King Solomon, son of King David, son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadab, son of Ram, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of our father Abraham, son of Terah, son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, son of Arpachshad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalelel, son of Kenan, son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of the first man—may the memory of the righteous be a blessing. And in about 1376, the nasi Jedidiah ben Jesse endorsed a letter of excommunication with a signature in which he traced himself back to Shealtiel, one of the last of the biblical descendants of King David, through a series of fortysix patrilineal predecessors.23 So said Jedidiah the nasi, son of Jesse, son of Solomon, son of Hezekiah, son of Jedidiah, son of Josiah, son of Judah, son of Solomon, son of ʿAzarya, son of Solomon, son of Josiah, son of Zakkay, son of Judah, son of David, son of Judah, son of Judah Isaac, son of Solomon, son of Ḥisday, [son of] Bustanay . . . , son of Bar Ḥana, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Ḥanina, son of Meremar, son of Zuṭra, son of Ḥuna, son of Nathan de-Ṣuṣita . . . , son of ʿAnan, son of Shaphat, son of Jacob, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Shekhanya, son of Obadiah, son of Jeshaiah, son of Ḥisday, son of Berechiah, son of Ḥanina, son of Meshullam, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel. Surveying these various genealogical records, it is possible to see how the individual pedigrees produced between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries evolved from an earlier tradition of lists of Davidic rulers like those embedded in Seder ʿolam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh. That the former derived from the latter is evident from their consistent reliance on the artificial sequence of post-biblical ancestors first attested in Seder ʿolam zuṭa.24 But before the content of those sources could actually fill their new function, three significant changes were



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first necessary: the relevant genealogical information had to be extracted from its original, narrative context; it had to be extended down to the time of the subject; and finally, and most significant, it had to be inverted and reformulated as a sequence of patrilineal ancestors. And in the process, chronicles of collective history were transformed into exclusive, personal genealogies. An unusual genealogical text dated to the eleventh century seems to reflect this very process at work. Discovered in the Geniza, the list happens to be the only example of a medieval pedigree to include information about multiple lines of the Davidic family (Figure 5).25 The text comprises a main sequence of sixteen names, beginning with Ḥananya ben Nathan, that are arranged chronologically from earliest to latest. The list is interrupted after the ninth name, Kahana, by the following Hebrew notice: “The children of Ishmael ruled; one hundred and one years remain for the Persians. And [the following] exilarchs came to power.” Following this are another seven names, concluding with David ben Zakkay. Upon careful examination the text appears to bear a number of striking similarities to the concluding section of Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, described above. The initial sequence of nine names in the Geniza list turns out to be identical to the second exilarchal list in Kitāb altaʾrīkh, the only difference being that the copyist of the Geniza text slightly modified and joined the first two names, Huna and Nathan, yielding “Ḥanina ben Nathan.” The historical notice in the Geniza text also corresponds both in location and content to the notice at the beginning of the seventh section of Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, except that the copyist has translated it into Hebrew and reversed the order of the Persians and the Arabs.26 Finally, the seven names after the historical notice in the Geniza text are no more than a collapsed version of the twelve names in the third and final list of exilarchs in Kitāb al-taʾrīkh.27 The Geniza text is therefore almost certainly based upon either Kitāb al-taʾrīkh itself or some similar work. The most unusual aspect of the Geniza text, however, is the way it supplements and individualizes the information taken from its literary source. To the central portion of the ancestor list described above, the copyist has added four distinct branches of the Davidic line, the names in each of which are written at an angle to the main body of the text, like marginal notations, and in a slightly different format.28 One segment branches off at the name Bustanay, providing a list of ten (or possibly eleven) generations of his descendants through a son named Ḥisday and a grandson named David. A subsidiary of this branch is indicated by the note that Ḥisday also had another son named Solomon, though none of the names of his descendants are recorded.

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Figure 5. An unusual family tree that charts the descendants of several branches of the Davidic line. In Hebrew, n.d. Cambridge University Library, Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection, Mosseri I.107.2

Two further branches of the family are linked to the last name in the main sequence, David ben Zakkay. One lists four generations of David’s descendants, while the other supplies the name of David’s brother, Josiah, and then notes that he in turn had a son named Solomon. Apart from providing further evidence of a growing concern with charting Davidic ancestry in Jewish society, this text sheds light on the process whereby genealogical knowledge was actually assembled. Historiographical works like Seder ʿolam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh appear to have supplied a basic store of genealogical information, which was then reshaped and personalized to meet the specific needs of individual Davidic dynasts. The Geniza text suggests a commentary-like adaptation of an authoritative genealogical sequence, which is first cited and then interpreted or updated by means of marginal notations. The point of calling attention to this is to emphasize the extent to which genealogies like Abraham al-Raḥbī’s indeed constituted a new and original conceptualization of ancestry. Though surely building on earlier texts, they nonetheless reflect a unique form of genealogical preoccupation quite distinct from that manifested even in Seder ʿolam zuṭa—a preoccupation that only reached maturity well into the Islamic period.



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Genealogical texts such as these captured the attention of a wide range of medieval authors, whose writings provide us with still further evidence of their impact on Jewish society. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who, as we saw above, observed that the House of David constituted “a great and large family” in his day, was struck by its genealogical records as well, and adds that it is “in possession of a pedigree [sefer ha-yaḥas] that extends back to antiquity.”29 The genealogical records of the Davidic family are also mentioned in the accounts of medieval Jewish travelers, who apparently considered them to be among the more noteworthy treasures in the possession of the Eastern communities they visited. In the introduction we observed Benjamin of Tudela’s and Petaḥya of Regensburg’s enthusiastic comparison of the exilarch to the Abbasid caliph, noting in particular the implied equation of their respective lineages.30 But their interests were not limited to the pedigree of the exilarch alone. Describing the leaders of the Jewish community of Tilmās in Yemen, Benjamin writes: “In this place lives Salmon the nasi, the brother of Hanan the nasi. The land belongs to the two brothers, and they are of the seed of David for they possess a written genealogy.”31 In the fourteenth century, Moses ben Samuel, a Karaite who served as kātib to the Muslim ruler of Damascus, visited Cairo where he met a nasi named Sar Shalom. Describing the encounter in his dīwān, Moses notes that “the genealogy of [the nasi’s] pure, unsullied, holy, and delightful family goes back to the tribe of Judah.”32 A century and a half later, the famous Mishnah commentator Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro (d. ca. 1509) learned of a Davidic pedigree while himself visiting Cairo. In a letter to his father written in 1488 he reports that the Jews of Egypt “told me about one of the Karaites in Cairo named Ṣedaqa, a wealthy and upright man, who was certainly related to King David. And they bid him to show me his genealogy, which was signed by witnesses in every generation.” Regrettably, Obadiah informs his father, he did not have sufficient time to inspect the pedigree with his own eyes.33 All of this suggests that the genealogical records of the Davidic line were not merely documents of personal family history, but objects of communal significance as well. As the status of the Davidic family grew among the Jews of the Near East, it is only natural that alternative pathways to membership in its ranks should have emerged alongside the lineage discussed above. The standard exilarchal line charted in Seder ʿolam zuṭa, and utilized by the majority of medieval claimants to Davidic ancestry, follows the biblical succession of the kings of Judah, all of whom purportedly descended from David’s son Solomon. But the Bible records that David had other sons as well, keeping open the possibility of inclusion in the

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Davidic family through other, non-exilarchal lines. During the Middle Ages David’s fifth son, Shephatiah, identified in rabbinic literature as the ancestor of the Palestinian patriarchs, became particularly important in this regard.34 Ben Meir, the Palestinian gaʾon involved in the calendar controversy of 921–922, mentions his descent from this line, but aside from a passing reference to Judah haNasi and Hillel as his ancestors, we have no concrete information about how that claim was actually substantiated.35 His descendants, who controlled the Palestinian gaonate into the eleventh century, asserted that lineage as well, but we have no way of knowing if they were able to back it up with documentation ­either.36 In the colophon to his commentary on the Pentateuch, a thirteenthcentury scion of Ben Meir’s family, Samuel ben David ben Solomon, provides a pedigree that enumerates nine generations of proximate ancestors before concluding with the following self-characterization: “the grandson of geʾonim, the descendant of our holy Rabbi, the offspring of Hillel the Elder who went up from Babylonia, from the sons of Shephatiah, son of Avital, son of David the king, the anointed one of the God of Israel.”37 Petaḥya of Regensburg provides additional evidence that such claims were occasionally backed up by genealogical records of the sort developed by the line of the exilarchs. In the town of Sepphoris, where Petaḥya visited the grave of the patriarch Judah ha-Nasi, he reports meeting a local who could trace his ancestry back to the sage.38 And an actual example of such a genealogy is preserved at the end of a letter of excommunication issued by the Iraqi nasi David ben Hodaya in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. David claimed to descend from the line of the Palestinian patriarchs, and his signature at the end of the text of the excommunication, comprising a sequence of thirty-eight patronymics that extends back to “David, king of Israel,” includes the names of Judah ha-Nasi, Hillel the Elder, Simeon ben Gamaliel, and their biblical ancestor, Shephatiah.39 Concern with Davidic genealogies was, however, part of a broader interest within Jewish society in the documentation of ennobling ancestries that extended back to biblical figures. Saʿadya Gaʾon reportedly traced himself back to Shelah, one of the sons of the biblical Judah, although we do not know if that claim was substantiated with written records. That it was subjected to scrutiny, however, is abundantly clear: Saʿadya’s opponents promptly dismissed its authenticity and called him a liar for putting it forward.40 An example of a non-Davidic pedigree comparable in length and structure to those described above occurs at the end of several versions of the “Story of Eldad ha-Dani.” A mysterious figure, Eldad appeared in the town of Qayrawān in the late ninth century claiming to come from a distant land where descendants of the ten “lost tribes” of Israel



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continued to thrive. His fantastic narrative about them and their practices, itself reflective of a fascination with biblical lineage, concludes with a genealogy in which Eldad traces himself back to the patriarch Jacob through his son Dan (hence his epithet “ha-Dani”), in thirty-nine, forty, or forty-two generations, depending on the version.41 Certain philological aspects of Eldad’s text as well as his apparent familiarity with Islamic traditions about the “Sons of Moses” have led a number of scholars to conclude that he probably originated somewhere in the Islamic East.42 If we accept his genealogy as an integral component of the medieval account it would seem to provide a counterpart to the kinds of genealogies that Davidic dynasts were generating in the same period and cultural environment. The family of priestly geʾonim that controlled the Palestinian yeshiva during the eleventh and twelfth centuries seems also to have been affected by the new concern with genealogical record-keeping. Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen ben Solomon, who held the offices of gaʾon and head of the Jews of Egypt from 1127 to 1139, begins a number of his letters with an abbreviated pedigree that enumerates in ascending order only four generations of ancestors but significantly concludes by referring to its subject as “the offspring [nekhed ] of Aaron the chief priest, the holy one of the Lord.” A fusion of phrases occurring in two different scriptural verses, the formulation is an unmistakable reference to the biblical Aaron and reflects an attempt to focus attention on the priesthood’s genealogical credentials.43 A genealogical list for another member of that family, Eleazar ben Solomon, enumerates ten generations of ancestors, again culminating with “Aaron the chief priest, the holy one of the Lord.”44 Our twelfth-century travelers also report on a number of non-Davidic genealogies that proliferated among the Jews of the Near East. Benjamin of Tudela writes that Samuel ben ʿEli, the head of the Baghdad yeshiva, “is a Levite and can trace his genealogy back to Moses our teacher.” And he informs us that Eleazar ben Ṣemaḥ, an official in the yeshiva with the title rosh seder, had “a pedigree reaching back to Samuel the prophet.”45 In the midst of his discussion of Jewish officials in Baghdad, Petaḥya declares that “all possess a pedigree going back to the biblical tribes.” He too comments on the pedigree of the head of the yeshiva, though he reports a lineage that differs from that mentioned in Benjamin’s account. According to Petaḥya, Samuel ben ʿEli was in possession of a genealogy “going back as far as Samuel of Ramah, son of Elkanah.”46 Petaḥya also records meeting “a distinguished priest” about a day’s journey from Baghdad, about whom “all of the people of Babylonia testify that he is from the seed of Aaron on both his father’s and his mother’s side, without blemish. And he has a genealogy going back to him.”47

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A report from several centuries later by Abraham ha-Levi Ibn Migash (d. 1589), a Jewish physician who served at the court of Suleyman the Magnificent, provides a glimpse of the way such genealogical traditions persisted among Jews in the East. In his polemical work in defense of the Jewish faith, Kevod Elohim (The Glory of God), Ibn Migash notes that Jews from the town of Wādī al-Qurra in Arabia have a pedigree through which they can trace their ancestry back to the biblical tribe of Manasseh.48 While it is tempting to see documentation of the lineage of the exilarchal family, already underway in the tenth century, as the catalyst for other groups within Jewish society to create written pedigrees of their own, our sources do not permit us to draw firm conclusions about cause and effect or direction of influence. What is clear, however, is that Davidic genealogies were indeed part of a much broader preoccupation with biblical ancestry in Jewish society—a preoccupation that placed particular emphasis on the ability to prove one’s lineage by means of an uninterrupted sequence of forebears. Al-Bīrūnī’s transcription of the pedigree of ʿAnan ben Daniel, which was discussed above, demonstrates that Muslims might, on occasion, take an interest not only in the biblical origins of the Davidic family, but in its actual genealogical records as well. In his partially preserved biographical dictionary, the Iraqi-born librarian and historian Ibn al-Fuwaṭī (d. 1323) also comments on the ancestor lists preserved by members of the Davidic line. He mentions that while visiting the city of Tabrīz he made a copy of the genealogy of the Davidic dynast Dānīyāl ibn Dāwūd—a pedigree, he is careful to note, that “reaches back to David, the son of Jesse, without interruption.”49 In the same city Ibn al-Fuwaṭī also transcribed the ancestor list of Hārūn ibn Yūsuf ibn Dānīyāl al-Dāwūdī, which similarly extended back to David and was, he adds, “more complete [muttaṣil]” than any other he had seen among the Jews.50

Genealogy and Authority Davidic genealogies were not merely objects of popular fascination for Jews and Muslims, however; they were also instruments for the legitimization of power. A fragmentary Hebrew letter from the Geniza that has been dated to the first half of the eleventh century describes the exploits of an individual who appeared in Palestine passing himself off as a nasi.51 The anonymous writer of the missive, chastising his readers for not checking the impostor’s credentials more carefully, reviews the events that transpired:



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Our brothers, you are aware of the terrible things that befell our community and yours, Egypt, Jerusalem, and all of the Land Israel, at the hands of that so-called nasi, who acquired for himself a good reputation and had in his possession a genealogy. He issued rulings, caused vexations, designated assistants, appointed deputies, wrote letters, dispatched runners, collected taxes and traveled from place to place administering justice to Israel. . . . In your land you had the Sanhedrin and ḥaverim, scholars and students, who are more valiant in Torah than all others, yet they submitted to his authority and treated him with honor and respect, failing to check his lineage properly. They imbibed his words with thirst, praised him, eulogized him before the nations and extolled him in front of kings and princes everywhere he went, from Fustat to Raqqa. Neither scholar, nor “head,” nor student hindered him; his bans were upheld and his rulings were registered before all. After two years it was revealed that he was not a nasi and that the communities had failed to recognize that the lineage he claimed was false. Nevertheless, they continued to respect him, insisting that he was a scholar. The letter provides a fascinating glimpse of the collective euphoria that a visiting member of the Davidic line could induce in a local Jewish community. And at the center of the impostor’s ruse, at least as the story is related by our letter writer, was his genealogy: the letter makes it clear that not only did he have in his possession a written text (ketav yaḥas), but that members of the community should have been more vigilant in scrutinizing it. Earlier in the letter, the writer laments more broadly the deplorable state of genealogical knowledge, attributing it, somewhat philosophically, to the conditions of exile: “You know, our brothers, that we are alone in the exile, without shepherd, or prophet, or the urim and tumim of which we might inquire in order to distinguish between crooked and straight, good and evil, and the one who is pedigreed and the one who lacks a pedigree [ben meyuḥas le-lo yiḥus].” Genealogical lists like those discovered in the Geniza did not automatically entitle their bearers to power. But as the incident described in this letter illustrates, they could certainly support claims to authority in a society that was so deeply respectful of the lineage they purported to document. A poetic composition written in honor of the fourteenth-century Iraqi nasi Sar Shalom ben Phineas offers another illustration of the public performance of genealogy and its importance for the validation of authority. The poem refers to Sar Shalom’s appointment to a position of authority—quite possibly the office

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of exilarch (see below)—and compares him to a newly crowned king: “behold Sar Shalom our nasi . . . , a king who has ascended the ranks of dignity.” Several lines later Sar Shalom’s ancestry is introduced as both a cause for joy and a sign of nobility: “Be merry, O Adina [i.e., Baghdad], and rejoice in him, sing to God with drums and cymbals: for one descended from the master, the beloved of comely appearance and beautiful eyes, has been made king.”52 Several damaged lines concerning Sar Shalom’s ancestry accompany the poem and seem to refer again to the occasion for which it was composed: “His name is Sar Shalom . . . the son of . . . Phineas. . . . Their genealogy attests that they are descendants of Solomon and David, and just as the truth of the pedigree was confirmed before the assembled congregation, so was it verified before the writer whose name appears at the end of these lines.”53 What sort of occasion is depicted in this text? Mann’s suggestion that the poem and the accompanying lines refer to a ceremony in which the Baghdad community confirmed Sar Shalom’s right to use the title nasi is problematic, as there is no evidence that nesiʾim ever sought, much less obtained such authorization.54 Indeed, as we saw in the previous chapter, the title nasi was quite liberally applied to claimants of Davidic lineage regardless of appointment or authorization. Alternatively, if the Sar Shalom ben Phineas mentioned in the text can be identified with the exilarch of the same name, as indeed seems to be the case, it may be surmised that the coronation ceremony described was connected with his appointment to the exilarchate.55 Whatever the specific circumstances may have been, however, the text reveals several noteworthy aspects of the practice of genealogy among Near Eastern Jews— dimensions that also recall al-Idrīsī’s confrontation with Ibn al-Jawwānī concerning the verification of his ʿAlid lineage. First, whether real or imagined, the text clearly depicts a public setting in which Sar Shalom’s genealogy was admired. Genealogy was important, in part, because of the way it could determine an individual’s standing with his contemporaries. But the text also raises the issue of verification: as we have seen, pedigrees could be falsified and it is for that reason that the public display of a “true” genealogy is here considered an occasion for rejoicing. Finally, the text sheds light on what medievals understood to be the real purpose of displaying genealogies, namely, to prove one’s descent from a foundational and ennobling forebear. Such genealogies were “goal oriented”: they knew exactly where they were headed and were deemed valuable to the extent that they succeeded in actually getting there. Living, as we do, at a time when genealogy is commonly understood to be the discovery of lost relatives by means of interviews and



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archival research, it is worth reminding ourselves how far removed such ideas would have been from the medieval men and women of the Geniza. The public performance of ancestry reflected in the preceding text was not limited to those who claimed Davidic lineage, however. The Geniza has preserved a large number of memorial lists that were drawn up for use in commemorative prayer rituals observed on the Day of Atonement as well as on other special occasions. Noting the abundance of these sources, Goitein concluded that reverence for ancestors was of paramount importance in Jewish society.56 Though considerably shorter than the genealogies described above—most enumerate fewer than seven generations—these lists nevertheless reflect the same general tendency to see an individual’s prestige as inherently bound up with his or her descent from a noble progenitor. Unlike the personal genealogies, however, these family records do not move backward in time but instead tend to follow the pattern of universal chronicles, beginning with a single ancestor and moving forward through successive generations of descendants. They also frequently incorporate multiple lines of descendants of the original ancestor. Families with leadership roles in the community are typically introduced in these sources with the phrase “the family of illustrious pedigree” (ha-mishpaḥa ha-meyuḥasa), thus reinforcing the perceived link between social prominence and noble ancestry.57 In one such list, the family of priestly geʾonim that controlled the Palestinian yeshiva in the eleventh century is referred to as “the House of the Priest,” referring, it seems, to the biblical Aaron much as he is acknowledged as the family’s ancestor in the short genealogies discussed above.58 In another, members of an earlier dynasty of Palestinian geʾonim, which traced itself to Rabbi Judah the Prince, are introduced as “the family of [our] holy Rabbi.”59 Memorial lists for Karaite nesiʾim follow the same model, beginning with the phrase “the family of illustrious pedigree, the family of the House of David.”60 The performance of Davidic genealogies should thus be seen as part of a broader pattern of behavior that was concerned not only with recording ancestry but with publicizing it as well.

Literary Commemorations We have spent a good bit of space discussing ancestor lists explicitly created for the purpose of recording an individual’s pedigree, but genealogical affiliations could be celebrated in other formats as well, particularly in verse and verse-like compositions. Alongside lavish descriptions of an individual’s piety,

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generosity, and learning, medieval panegyric poetry frequently focuses on the virtue of noble birth. And when members of the Davidic family were involved, this tendency to eulogize a subject’s family could become an opportunity to recount the actual names of ancestors as well. Bound as they were by the rigid, formal aspects of medieval Hebrew poetry, writers of such works could not easily reproduce in verse their patrons’ and addressees’ complete genealogies. But they did succeed in weaving into their compositions the names of a few suggestive ancestors, from as few as a handful to as many as sixteen or seventeen, giving particular weight to the names of King David’s biblical forebears and offspring. Though significantly shorter in scope, such poetic compositions were nonetheless closely linked to the genealogical lists discussed above, for not only do they share the same concern with publicizing ancestry, they also presume a familiarity on the part of the reader/listener with their contents. The celebration of Davidic lineage forms the central theme of a 243-line poem dedicated to the nasi Daniel ben ‘Azarya.61 The poem, composed in 1057 by ʿEli ha-Kohen, utilizes Daniel’s descent from King David in order to situate him within the epic sweep of Israel’s sacred history. The first half of the poem reviews early biblical history, beginning with creation and the stories of the patriarchs. Roughly halfway through the composition Judah is foregrounded and, from that point on, the poem shifts from a broad focus on national history to a more defined celebration of the royal line. In the hundred or so lines that follow, twenty of Judah’s descendants are individually enumerated, the last of whom is Daniel ben ʿAzarya, who is lauded for his piety, rightenousness and scholarly attainments. ʿEli ha-Kohen’s decision to highlight only some of Judah’s successors was not haphazard. The patriarch’s twenty descendants break down neatly into two groups of ten generations each, the first of which culminates with King David and the second of which closes with the subject of the poem, Daniel ben ʿAzarya. ʿEli ha-Kohen’s selective review of Daniel’s genealogy thus underscores his fulfillment of the providential role assigned to Judah’s family and implies his identification with King David himself. As in Seder ʿolam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh, sacred time is recounted in the poem primarily through a succession of divinely chosen ancestors, and, lying at the very heart of this vision of the Jewish past, tinged with messianic overtones, is the Davidic family. Besides providing a structure for the panegyric, the review of Daniel’s genealogy also has an overt political significance. For, in portraying Daniel as the direct successor to a continuous line of



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descendants of King David, the poem dramatically argues that his assumption of the post of gaʾon fulfills a divine plan extending back to creation. Not everyone, however, saw things that way. Daniel’s appointment as gaʾon of the Palestinian yeshiva was, in fact, fraught with controversy, for it entailed an unusual departure from the customary system of succession within the ranks of the institution, as well as the displacement of a candidate from the family of priests long associated with the leadership of the yeshiva. ʿEli ha-Kohen’s composition, with its heavy emphasis on the selection of the Davidic family was part of a broad campaign aimed at redeeming the gaonate of Daniel ben ʿAzarya from its disputed status. And though preserved in written form, like most medieval panegyrics it was originally intended for oral recitation, providing yet another witness to the practice of performing a legitimizing pedigree.62 That the recitation of an individual’s noble ancestors might constitute a form of tribute is also evident in an elaborate introduction to a letter addressed to Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s son, David. Like his father’s usurpation of the headship of the Palestinian yeshiva, David ben Daniel’s political activities posed a threat to the descendants of the Palestinian gaʾon Solomon ha-Kohen ben Joseph (d. 1025). David did not challenge the priestly geʾonim by trying to secure for himself a post within the yeshiva, however. Rather, through his ambitious activities in Fustat, he was ultimately responsible for the political marginalization of the yeshiva. His assumption in Egypt of a variety of administrative prerogatives in the last quarter of the eleventh century—such as maintaining a high court, appointing local officials, and collecting taxes, privileges hitherto associated with the Palestinian gaonate—ultimately laid the groundwork for Egyptian Jewry’s autonomy from the authority of the Palestinian yeshiva. The culmination of his political reforms and his audacious arrogation of the title exilarch, in or about the year 1091, illustrates that David, like his father, found both opportunity and legitimacy in his Davidic ancestry—this despite the very different trajectories their respective careers followed.63 After learning that David had been proclaimed exilarch, a supporter from Tyre wrote to convey his congratulations. His mood is ecstatic. “When your servant learned that you attained the prestigious rank of your ancestors,” he writes, “having been designated exilarch and crowned with rule, I prostrated myself on the ground, and gave thanks to God for your success in having been brought into His assembly and adorned with the mantle of your forebears.” Part of the letter’s introduction includes an alphabetic acrostic made up of a series of alliterative two- and three-word phrases describing David, most of which cleverly invoke the name of one of his biblical ancestors.

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To the tamarisk of the lion [eshel arye], the descendant of Boaz [ben beri Boʿaz], the offspring of the whelp [gezaʿ gur], the banner of David [degel David], and the deputy of Judah [u-segan Yehuda], the seed of Zerubbabel [zeraʿ Zerubavel], the offspring of Hezekiah [ḥanit Ḥizqiya], the child of the comely one [ṭeful ṭov reʾi], the kin of Josiah [yiḥus Yoshiya], the namesake of Jeconiah [kinuy Koniya], the attendant of Lemuel [livuy Lemuʾel], from the stock of kings [mi-gezaʿ melakhim], the grandson of Nahshon [nekhed Naḥshon], the shoot of Salmon [serig Salmon], the branch of Obed [ʿanaf ʿOved], the fruit of Perez [peri Pereṣ], the flower of Zedekiah [ṣiṣ Ṣidqiya], the possession of Qohelet [qeniyat Qohelet], the prince of Ram [regem Ram], the root of Jesse [shoresh Yishay], the staff of Shealtiel [sheveṭ Sheʾaltiʾel], the worm of Tahkemoni [tolaʿat Taḥkemoni].64 As in the poem for his father, the account of David’s lineage is both abbreviated and heavily weighted toward biblical figures, yet even so it manages to mention no fewer than seventeen individuals. A much shorter list of ancestors is incorporated into a poem composed by ʿEli ben Amram (fl. 1026–75) for an eleventh-century Davidic dynast who also happened to have the name David, possibly the very same David ben Daniel described above.65 The poem, which lauds the special qualities of the royal family in ways that should now be quite familiar—“they are righteous and free of pollution, sons of noblemen”—refers at one point to its members as “the sons of Nahshon and Salmon, the sons of Obed and Jesse.” In enumerating this series of names, ʿEli refers to the list of King David’s ancestors that appears at the very end of the book of Ruth, a sequence that was integrated into medieval Davidic genealogies (and that figures in both the poem for Daniel ben ʿAzarya and the letter to David ben Daniel discussed above). ʿEli reproduced only a few of the names in this list, yet he no doubt counted



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on the fact that his readers would be familiar with a more complete version of the Davidic pedigree. Indeed, part of the skillfulness of his poem hinges on the assumption that, after the names Salmon, Nahshon, Obed, and Jesse, the reader, conversant with the Davidic lineage, was primed to expect a David. This expectation is realized four lines later when a David is in fact introduced (“He is David”), though it is not the initially anticipated biblical monarch, but rather the eleventh-century subject of ʿEli’s poem, “the head of all the chiefs of the nesiʾim.”66 A literary adaptation of a Davidic pedigree also occurs in Judah alḤarīzī’s Taḥkemoni. In a long encomium to Josiah ben Jesse, a nasi in Damascus and one of those to whom Taḥkemoni was dedicated, al-Ḥarīzī makes much of his patron’s ancestry, describing him, among other things, as “the offspring of kings” and “one who merited a noble lineage and a good reputation.”67 Al-Ḥarīzī also calls attention to his subject’s lineage by weaving biblical passages associated with the Davidic family into his panegyric, creating the imaginative impression that their fulfillment was achieved in the nasi Josiah. Adapting Isaiah’s prophecy about the birth of a king who will one day sit on the throne of David (Isaiah 9:5–6), al-Ḥarīzī writes: “Behold a son is born to the House of David whose name is Josiah, and the government shall be upon his shoulder.” Similarly, when the poet declares, “Behold, I have observed a son of Jesse,” he artfully applies to his thirteenth-century subject words originally uttered about the biblical David (1 Samuel 16:18). But al-Ḥarīzī does not limit himself to indirect allusions to Josiah’s ancestry; he also reproduces an abbreviated (and partially rhyming) genealogy that traces the nasi’s descent from King David, and individually names sixteen of his royal ancestors: He is the crown of saints and princes, of the stock of kings and the God-fearing, our nasi and our lord, the pillar of light that enlightens our eyes, and the ark of the covenant which journeys before us, to make the rugged mountain level in front of us that our camp may be holy . . . his holy excellence, our teacher and our master, our lord and our nasi, our ruler, our king, Josiah, the great nasi, the head of the exile of all Israel . . . the son of his honorable, holy excellence, our nasi Jesse, the great exilarch, the head of the exile of all Israel . . . son of Solomon, son of Josiah, son of Nehemiah, son of Hodaya, descendant of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of King Jeconiah, son of Josiah, son of Hezekiah, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, son of Asa, son of Abijah, son of

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Solomon, son of David, the man raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet singer of Israel.68 Earlier in the same work, writing about Samuel Ibn al-Barqūlī of Baghdad, another of his patrons, al-Ḥarīzī hints at the rationale for incorporating what at first blush might appear to be an uninspired list in the middle of verses of praise in Josiah’s honor. “When he traces his genealogy,” al-Ḥarīzī says of al-Barqūlī, “he leaves below all those of distinguished families.”69 What the poet seems to be suggesting is that the enumeration of noble ancestors can itself constitute a form of panegyric. This same notion crops up in yet another composition written in honor of Josiah. The text is a rhyming strophic poem, each stanza of which concludes with the following lines: Greatness is not in diadems, necklaces, or fine clothing; It is only to be found in the enduring kindness of David. In this poem al-Ḥarīzī once again emphasizes Josiah’s royal pedigree— the enduring benefaction of David alluded to in the refrain—mentioning by name the biblical kings Amaziah, Uzziah, and Hezekiah and describing them as “crowns upon the head of Josiah.” He continues: What is there left to ask about the eminence of the man whose ancestors are these? Earth and sky he made tremble with his pedigree and dominion. . . .  His list of ancestors informs all who come that they are indeed lords.70 Underlying these panegyrics is the notion that noble pedigrees were more than just private records of family history. As we have observed, reciting the names of illustrious ancestors was, among other things, a way of paying homage to an individual, a fact that underscores the important public dimension of the genealogical consciousness we have been examining. The ability to connect oneself without interruption to a remote and authenticating ancestor was, we have seen, a particularly valued trait. Indeed, one suspects that Davidic dynasts occasionally traced themselves not just to King David but all the way to Adam in order to draw attention to the uniquely comprehensive nature of their lineage. There was, after all, little need to list the names of the thirty-some ascendants of King David given that their names are



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all readily available in biblical sources. In presenting their ancestries in this manner, however, Davidic dynasts drew attention to one of the things that made their pedigree so venerable, namely its exhaustiveness. They were also following a model that was central to Islamic society’s construction of Muḥammad. Ibn Hishām’s biography of the Prophet begins with a genealogy that traces Muḥammad’s ancestry back to Adam in precisely the same fashion (names, biblical and otherwise, are transliterated according to their rendering in the Arabic text): The presentation of the pure lineage of Muḥammad and his family going back to Ādam . . . Muḥammad, son of ʿAbd Allāh, son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib . . . , son of Hāshim . . . , son of ʿAbd Manāf . . . , son of Qusayy . . . , son of Kilāb, son of Murra, son of Kaʿb, son of Luʾayy, son of Ghālib, son of Fihr, son of Mālik, son of al-Naḍar, son of Kināna, son of Khuzayma, son of Mudrika . . . , son of Ilyās, son of Muḍar, son of Nizār, son of Maʿadd, son of ʿAdnān, son of ʿUd . . . , son of Muqawwam, son of Nāḥūr, son of Tayraḥ, son of Yaʿrub, son of Yashjub, son of Nābit, son of Ismāʿīl, son of Ibrāhīm . . . , son of Tāriḥ . . . , son of Nāḥūr, son of Sārūgh, son of Rāʿū, son of Fālikh, son of ‘Aybar, son of Shālikh, son of Arfakhshadh, son of Sām, son of Nūḥ, son of Lamk, son of Mattushalakh, son of Akhnūkh . . . , son of Yard, son of Mahlīl, son of Qaynan, son of Yānish, son of Shīth, son of Ādam.71 Such lists convey a sense of genealogical thoroughness not only by extending their subject’s lineage back to the origins of humanity but also in the number of ancestors they incorporate. The ancestry cited above presents Muḥammad as the fiftieth-generation descendant of Adam, a suspiciously round figure that would seem to have been chosen intentionally. The genealogy copied by Abraham al-Raḥbī reflects a similar penchant for roundness, its unnamed subject being the hundredth-generation descendant of Adam. And the same phenomenon is discernible in the genealogy of David ben Hodaya, discussed above, whose pedigree goes back to King David by means of a sequence of precisely forty generations.72 All this suggests that the genealogical lists disseminated by members of the Davidic line were not straightforward records of the names of forebears, but crafted statements that sought to present their subjects as both the embodiment and the culmination of a revered dynastic legacy.73 It is the prestige associated with such a complete ancestry that is conveyed in part by the notion of a “pedigreed family” (mishpaḥa meyuḥasa), a phrase

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that, as we have seen, appears in numerous memorial lists from the Geniza. Benjamin of Tudela and Petaḥya of Regensburg, we should recall, never tire of mentioning that an individual’s ancestry extended all the way back to a biblical figure—the critical point being that the lineage under discussion was uninterrupted. And the same respect for genealogical completeness is expressed by the Muslim historian Ibn al-Fuwaṭī as well, when, as we have noted, he pauses to comment on the impressive continuity of the Davidic genealogies he copied in Tabrīz. Such records were indeed unusual and deserving of special attention. About three centuries earlier al-Bīrūnī noted that “it very rarely happens that genealogies are preserved without any interruption during a long period of time.”74 It is especially noteworthy that al-Bīrūnī illustrates this point by observing that even in the genealogy of the Prophet Muḥammad there are murky links about which genealogists are in disagreement. Under such conditions, the exhaustiveness of pedigrees extending back to the biblical period would likely have been a considerable source of pride for Jews. The cultural significance of a continuous pedigree finds expression in a commentary on the Book of Ruth by the tenth-century Karaite exegete Yefet ben ʿEli. Discussing the final verses of the work, in which ten generations of King David’s ancestors are enumerated, Yefet writes: “We do not find genealogies that continue [nisba muʾafa] to the end of the period of prophecy except for those of the priests and the kings, and this is on account of their nobility among [li-sharfihim ʿalā] the Jewish people.”75 For Yefet, noble status and genealogical meticulousness go hand in hand. But if there were good reasons to publicize a Davidic ancestry and take pride in its comprehensiveness, such displays also involved a measure of exposure that could invite forgery. The incidents discussed above involving alIdrīsī and the impostor nasi demonstrate that both Muslims and Jews were susceptible to temptations of this sort. And in his history al-Bīrūnī attests to the prevalence of this phenomenon as well. “Friends and partisans,” he writes, “are eager to embellish that which is ugly, to cover up the weak parts, to proclaim publicly that which is noble. . . . Obstinacy in this direction frequently leads people to invent laudatory stories, and to forge genealogies which go back to glorious ancestors.”76 One evident effort to grapple with this situation can be glimpsed at the end of the writ of excommunication signed by the late fourteenth-century nesiʾim David ben Hodaya and Jedidiah ben Jesse. The matter addressed in the document concerned the Alsatian scholar Samuel ben Aaron of Schlettstadt, who was forced to flee the town of Strasbourg after becoming involved



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in a dispute with some of the members of the local Jewish community. David and Jedidiah demanded that Samuel be allowed to return to Strasbourg, and, further, that he be compensated for losses incurred as a result of his flight. Those who refuse to comply are threatened with excommunication. In affixing their names to the harshly worded text, both nesiʾim provide extensive genealogies that lend an added measure of gravity to their threat. Following these extended signatures we find the following warning: “Out of fear of forgery we hereby decree a ban, an excommunication and a curse upon anyone who copies this lineage, written with [all of] its links . . . and the [scribe] who has copied our letter has heeded our decree and omitted one name from each of the genealogies.”77 Once again we encounter the notion of completeness, for the value of a genealogy was apparently understood to lie in its uninterrupted sequence of ancestors.78 At the beginning of this chapter we noted the resources and energy that Islamic society invested in preventing individuals from making illegitimate claims to noble ancestry. Its support for the post of naqīb al-ashrāf and encouragement of the investigations of genealogical experts such as Ibn al-Jawwānī bear witness to how great the concern was. The criminality of misrepresenting one’s ancestry was, moreover, a subject that was taken up by Muslim jurists and Qurʾān commentators.79 While Near Eastern Jewish society had come to value noble ancestry in strikingly similar ways, it did not develop comparable means for monitoring those seeking to claim the status of a Davidic pedigree. In the absence of the kinds of institutions devoted to safeguarding nobility that emerged in Muslim society, the Jewish community thus seems to have had to rely on less formal mechanisms of preserving the ranks of the royal line, mechanisms that evidently were not always entirely successful.

Names The propagation of Davidic genealogies is only the most explicit illustration of the way members of the medieval House of David laid claim to a historical, and primarily biblical, legacy. Additional evidence of this process can be seen in their preference for the names of biblical figures associated with the royal line. Examining general onomastic practices reflected in the Geniza, Goitein concluded that family cohesiveness and veneration for previous generations frequently guided the decision to name male children after their forebears.80 The extent to which naming practices were bound up with the process of

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identity formation is particularly apparent in the case of members of the Davidic family for whom personal names served as a further means of fostering the widespread belief in their ancestral connection to King David. Beginning in about the tenth century, individuals claiming descent from King David exhibited a strong predilection for biblical names associated with the royal line.81 As an illustration, we consider the names in the ancestor lists of three Davidic dynasts: David ben Daniel, Hezekiah ben David, and Jedidiah ben Jesse. All three were descendants of the late ninth- and early tenth-century exilarch Zakkay, and we concern ourselves with their genealogies going back no further than him. The genealogy of the nasi David ben Daniel, who declared himself exilarch in Egypt in the last decade of the eleventh century, contains the following names: David, Daniel, ʿAzarya, Solomon, Josiah, and Zakkay.82 That of the eleventh-century exilarch Hezekiah ben David consists of the names Hezekiah, David, Hezekiah, David, Hezekiah, Judah, David, and Zakkay.83 And the genealogy of the fourteenth-century nasi Jedidiah ben Jesse, one of the signatories of the letter of excommunication drafted on behalf of Samuel of Schlettstadt, contains the names Jedidiah, Jesse, Solomon, Hezekiah, Jedidiah, Josiah, Judah, Solomon, ʿAzarya, Solomon, Josiah, and Zakkay.84 The sequence ʿAzarya—Solomon— Josiah—Zakkay is found in both the genealogy of David ben Daniel and Jedidiah ben Jesse and so should be counted only once. But even after adjusting for this repetition, we still are left with the significant fact that of the twenty individual descendants of Zakkay enumerated in these lists, all have names associated with the Davidic line.85 And even if we make an allowance for the common practice of recycling names within a family, these ancestries still reflect an unusually strong preference for naming after Davidic figures, for a total of nine different Davidic names are distributed among the twenty individuals. All this suggests that nesiʾim deliberately named their sons after the biblical ancestors and descendants of King David. And the trend was not just restricted to this particular branch of the Davidic line. If we look at the names in the genealogy of the twelfth-century Karaite nasi Solomon ben David, who was not related to the above-mentioned Zakkay in any evident way, we find the same situation again. The last nine names in his pedigree are Solomon, David, Ḥisday, Hezekiah, Solomon, David, Boaz, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah. Of these nine individuals, eight are named after figures in the Davidic line, and they hold between them a total of six different Davidic names. A glance at the list in Appendix B provides additional confirmation: of the total 107 dynasts that can be positively identified,



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there are sixteen Davids, ten Solomons, five Jesses, five Josiahs, and five Hezekiahs. The conclusion that the preference for Davidic names was intentional is reinforced when we recall Nehoray, the physician from Sepphoris, described by Petaḥya of Regensburg. According to Petaḥya, Nehoray gave his son the name Judah in honor of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the family’s illustrious ancestor.86 The report suggests that offspring might indeed be named so as to strengthen ties to an ennobling lineage and to promote a family’s pedigree. In at least certain circumstances, then, naming patterns appear to have been driven by the same kinds of concerns that generated the genealogical lists examined above. Recognition of the power of names to shape an individual’s public image in relation to his lineage also emerges from the “Scroll of Zuṭa the Wicked.” Composed by Abraham bar Hillel in 1197, the text is a highly partisan literary-historical account of the downfall of an Egyptian Jewish leader in the latter part of the twelfth century.87 Identified disparagingly as Zuṭa (“the small one”), the scroll’s corrupt villain is depicted as having initially won support among the Jewish masses by appealing to their messianic hopes. Proclaiming himself to be the herald of the redeemer, the text has Zuṭa declare: “Be comforted, be comforted, my people, for the light of salvation will come forth in my lifetime, and from me [you] will receive the messiah.”88 Significantly, Zuṭa’s posturing also involved the adoption of a new name, one that was better suited to his aspirations and deep with messianic resonances. “His parents called him Yaḥyā,” the text explains, “but he changed his name to Sar Shalom.” Abraham bar Hillel gives voice to the notion that names could express both personal ambition and ancestral entitlement when he has Zuṭa further assert: “Is not authority [misra] firmly set in my name, my inheritance from father and mother?”89 Zuṭa’s rhetorical question alludes to the wording of Isaiah 9:5, the biblical source for the name Sar Shalom and a verse with great eschatological significance in the Middle Ages. Subjective as Abraham bar Hillel’s depiction of Zuṭa surely is, it nonetheless illustrates the power a name might have for medieval Jews, especially one with Davidic and messianic associations. Goitein understood the prevalence of messianic-themed names among a number of the Iraqi geʾonim in much the same way, namely as a deliberate attempt to construct a public image that was tinged with the promise of salvation.90 The eschatological significance of a number of popular names in the Geniza society will be dealt with at greater length in Chapter 4. For the purposes of the present discussion it is sufficient to note the degree to which names helped to shape popular perceptions by often reinforcing ancestral claims.

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Abraham bar Hillel’s allegation that Zuṭa chose a new name that would be more in keeping with his self-aggrandizing pretensions is also reminiscent of the way names were sometimes carefully chosen by Muslim rulers as they sought to legitimate their political and religious authority. And in this connection, too, one notes the simultaneous cultivation of noble ancestry and the promotion of a messianic potential. The second Abbasid caliph, al-Manṣūr (d. 775), faced a serious challenge to his authority in the form of an open revolt led by several members of the ʿAlid family, including Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh (d. 762), known to his sympathizers as al-nafs al-zakiyya (“the pure soul”). Designated from an early age by his followers as the mahdī, the anticipated redeemer from the family of the Prophet, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh posed a serious ideological threat not only to al-Manṣūr but to the legitimacy of Abbasid rule in general.91 Jere L. Bacharach has argued that one of ways al-Manṣūr sought to counter this ʿAlid threat was to bestow upon his son and successor, who also happened to have the name Muḥammad, the title al-Mahdī, noting that its first appearance occurs on coins that were minted in the same year as the rebellion. Bachrach suggests that the eschatological connotations of the title would have been manifestly understood, and that by incorporating it into his coinage al-Manṣūr was effectively asserting that “the Abbasid family and not the Alids were the legitimate religious and political successors to the Prophet.”92 Similarly, Heinz Halm has made the case that the founder of the Fatimid dynasty manipulated both names and genealogy as he too endeavored to win recognition, first for himself and later for his son, as the mahdī. Born in the latter part of the ninth century as Saʿīd ibn Ḥusayn, he eventually began to use the name ʿAbd Allāh, claiming that the name Saʿīd was merely a pseudonym. Later, after having consolidated his authority among the Kutāma Berbers and asserted his ʿAlid genealogy, he began to refer to his son ʿAbd al-Rahmān as Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad, effectively bestowing on him the Prophet’s full name—Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh—a name, which, according to at least certain traditions, was also to be that of the future mahdī.93 In an environment in which both Jewish and Muslim leaders identified themselves with religious and political ideologies through carefully chosen names and titles, the significance of the Davidic family’s predilection for names in the royal line should not be discounted. Such names offered yet another means of laying claim to a royal pedigree and cultivating a public identity oriented around it. Through various outward-directed mechanisms, Davidic dynasts appealed to a deeply ingrained longing for the biblical monarchy, and their discernible preference for Davidic names reinforced popular



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perceptions, already nourished by elaborate genealogical records, that they were indeed scions of a flourishing House of David.

Visual Cues to Ancestry If genealogies and naming patterns were the most common ways of identifying an individual with the Davidic line, royal ancestry could also be asserted through the representation of a lion’s image, though, as we might expect, with considerably less frequency given the concerns about iconography in medieval Arab-Islamic society. While only a few actual examples have been preserved, the seals of Jewish notables and leaders are mentioned in various sources from the Near East reflecting their important societal function as visual markers of status.94 Their significance is further implied by a clause in the Pact of ʿUmar that specifically prohibits dhimmī populations from engraving their seals with Arabic inscriptions.95 An ancient symbol for the Davidic monarchy, the image of a lion was invoked in various ways by members of the medieval House of David as a means of identifying themselves with their biblical forebears. The association of the Davidic line with a lion’s image is often explained on the basis of the biblical blessing bestowed upon the patriarch Judah, the progenitor of King David, by his father Jacob: “Judah is a lion’s whelp. . . . Like a lion he crouches, lies down; like a lion—who dares to rouse him?” (Genesis 49:9). The connection is reinforced by the description in 1 Kings 10 of a pair of lion statues that flanked the throne of King Solomon. Medieval exegetes, interpreting the lion as an allusion either to David or the messiah, imagined that its image adorned the banner carried by the tribe of Judah in the wilderness and appeared also on the pennants of the Davidic kings.96 Not only, then, did the representation of a lion on the seals of medieval exilarchs and nesiʾim recall scriptural passages associated with the Davidic line, it recapitulated as well an iconic practice that medieval Jews associated with the biblical House of David. The earliest surviving evidence of the use of a lion’s image to promote Davidic ancestry comes from a tenth-century seal inscribed with the name “Heman ben Ḥanamel the nasi” and adorned with the legend “the Lord is my allotted share and my cup” [Psalms 16:5].97 Depicted in the center of the seal is a lion with its head to the right and a star below its front legs. The scion of a family with recognized ties to David, Heman drew attention to his pedigree through a combination of textual and visual cues.98 The ancestral pride signaled by the

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inclusion of the title nasi is reiterated graphically in the depiction of a lion resulting in overlapping and reinforcing assertions of Heman’s membership in the Davidic family.99 A medieval tradition attributed use of the same emblem to the family of Sherira Gaʾon. In his famous Epistle, addressed to Jacob ben Nissim Ibn Shāhīn of Qayrawān, Sherira twice mentions a tradition about his family’s descent from the exilarchal dynasty. In the first, after pointing out that the Babylonian amora Rabba bar Abbuha was related to the family of the exilarchs, he adds that “we are in possession of a tradition according to which we too are from the exilarchal family and are the descendants of Rabba bar Abbuha.”100 Later in the text, as he surveys the history of relations between the exilarchate and the yeshivot, he once again refers to this family tradition: “The exilarchate wielded great and stern authority during the reign of the Persians and the Ishmaelites. . . . Our ancestors came from the family of the exilarchs, but they abandoned their deplorable ways and joined the rabbis of the academy, seeking modesty and humility.”101 This ancestral claim was not only accepted by medieval Jews; it was understood to be the explanation for a distinctive mark that was ostensibly found on documents issued by Sherira’s son, Hayya Gaʾon. Describing the latter, Abraham Ibn Daud writes: Of the geʾonim before him there was none like him, and he was the last of the geʾonim. He was of the House of David, of the royal line, of the descendants of Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel and of the nesiʾim and exilarchs who came after him. I have seen his seal on documents that he issued, and a lion was engraved in it just as there had been on the pennant of the camp of Judah and on the pennants of the kings of Judah. However, since the beginning of Muslim rule, the exilarchs did not exercise their authority fittingly. They used to buy their position with large sums of money, like publicans, and were worthless shepherds. Consequently his ancestors did not wish to become exilarchs, and they turned to the ­gaonate instead. He was also descended from Rabba bar Abbuha.102 Ibn Daud’s depiction of Hayya is undoubtedly based on information originating in Sherira’s Epistle. The references to the corrupt practices of the exilarchs, the decision to abandon the exilarchate for the gaonate, and the alleged descent from Rabba bar Abbuha all point to Sherira as the source for Ibn Daud’s comments. But if Ibn Daud is indebted to Sherira’s text, he has also rearranged



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its material, refocusing it and placing significantly greater emphasis on the ancestral connections between the gaʾon’s family and King David. Sherira merely writes that he is related to the family of the exilarchs, leaving the Davidic implications of that assertion unstated.103 Of evidently greater significance to him was his family’s genealogical connection to the rabbinic sage Rabba bar Abbuha. It is Ibn Daud who, as it were, connects the dots, effectively producing a new portrait of the gaʾon’s family in which its Davidic roots are brought to the fore. And crucial to this transformation is Ibn Daud’s discussion of Hayya’s seal, a new narrative element that visually reinforces the representation of the gaʾon’s family as partaking of royal lineage. Although Ibn Daud provides the only direct evidence regarding the appearance of Hayya’s seal, two modern scholars believed that they had found support for his description of it in the Geniza. In 1925 Jacob Mann pointed out that the word “lion” appears after Hayya’s signature on a copy of a deed that was issued by his court.104 Mann surmised that the inexplicable word was a copyist’s way of indicating an image that must have appeared in the text before him, citing the passage from Ibn Daud in support of his contention. Nearly five decades later Shraga Abramson described another, more severely damaged copy of the same document discussed by Mann, which he had come across in a different Geniza collection. Abramson claimed to be able to make out in that second version an actual image of a lion after the gaʾon’s name, thus seemingly confirming both Ibn Daud’s report and Mann’s conjecture.105 Alluring as they are, however, neither of these reconstructions is entirely convincing: there are, to be sure, more plausible ways of making sense of Mann’s text and serious doubts about the image that appears on Abramson’s.106 It remains doubtful, then, whether Hayya actually employed the image attributed to him by others, and, if he did, how he would have understood its significance. Ibn Daud’s description is nonetheless significant as it reflects a sense of the lion’s image as a visual cue to membership in the royal line, even if we cannot be certain that it was used that way by Hayya Gaʾon. In 1286 the Damascus nasi Jesse ben Hezekiah issued a ban directed against the critics of Moses Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed that bore a seal with the image of a lion. The original document with the image no longer exists, but in this case we are fortunate to have a brief but explicit effort to record what it looked like by a later copyist. The copyist who encountered the image described it as the representation of a lion with an arm raised to its head. He does not specify whether the seal itself bore a legend, but below its impression he notes that the nasi added the following:

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This is my decree and my seal—I, Jesse ben Hezekiah ben Jesse the nasi, along with the endorsement of my colleagues . . . may God bless them. He who listens will be mindful, but the fool will pay no heed, as David himself warned, saying, “Listen to me, O my brothers and my people” [1 Chronicles 28:2]. Our sages said: “If [they are] ‘my brothers’ why [does he need to say] ‘my people,’ and if [they are] ‘my people’ why [does he need to say] ‘my brothers?’ [The intended meaning is:] If you listen to me you will be ‘my brothers,’ but if not you will be ‘my people’ and I will rule over [erde] you with the scepter [ba-sheveṭ]” [BT Sota 40a], as it is written: “The scepter [sheveṭ] shall not depart from Judah” [Genesis 49:10]. 107 Like Heman ben Ḥanamel, Jesse combined the image of a lion with other carefully chosen textual cues to his Davidic ancestry. At first blush, his reference to David’s warning in 1 Chronicles 28:2, along with its interpretation in the Babylonian Talmud, appears unremarkable. Jesse, however, has modified the wording of the rabbinic passage—substituting “scepter” (sheveṭ) for “rod” (maqel)—with significant consequences. For in doing so, he foreshadows the citation of Genesis 49:10 that immediately follows, a verse that is not part of the talmudic discussion, but that does include the word “scepter.” By means of this seemingly inconsequential word substitution Jesse ben Hezekiah is able to move effortlessly (“As it is written . . . ”) from the rabbinic interpretation of 1 Chronicles 28:2 to Genesis 49:10, a connection not anticipated by the talmudic passage itself. The significance in this context of Genesis 49:10, a verse that directly follows on Jacob’s characterization of Judah as a lion, hinges on its associations in rabbinic literature with the exilarchs. As we noted in the previous chapter, medieval Davidic dynasts frequently cited this verse according to its rabbinic interpretation believing that it entitled them to special privileges. We can be certain that Jesse ben Hezekiah also had this interpretation in mind, for only by means of it does the connection between the talmudic discussion and Genesis 49:10 become comprehensible. The upshot is that Jesse succeeds in issuing a stern warning to his readers while simultaneously reminding them of his links to the family of the exilarchs and to King David himself. Through a combination of iconographic imagery and text, Jesse’s seal impression and accompanying signature articulate an ideology of authority based on genealogical ties to the royal family. A related example of the representation of Davidic ancestry through reference to the lion of Judah is evident in a letter sent sometime in the early eleventh century by “the community of Gaza and those who were displaced there” to the



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court of the Palestinian community in Fustat.108 The letter complains of the difficulties that Mevorakh ben Nathan of Gaza encountered as he tried to collect the estate of his brother Amram, who died in the town of Fayyūm. The leaders of the Gaza community urge the Egyptian court—headed by Ephraim ben Shemarya, a Gazan himself—to reconsider their position. The letter bears the signatures of fifteen community members, including that of the local representative of the Palestinian yeshiva, Yeshuʿa ben Nathan, who claimed to be a descendant of the Davidic line.109 Yeshuʿa’s signature is embellished with tiny letters written above and below his name—a commonplace in many a Geniza document, such ciphers often containing a motto of some personal significance for the signatory.110 In Yeshuʿa’s case the lettering spells out the words “scion of the lion’s whelp” (nin gur arye), alluding to the now familiar blessing in Genesis 49:9. From the same Yeshuʿa we also have a cycle of lament poems that mourn the death of his son Josiah in the spring of 1026. In a colophon to those texts the phrase “scion of the lion’s whelp” is used once more in conjunction with Yeshuʿa’s name and is followed by a second motto: “The scepter shall not depart.”111 Here again Judah’s “lion” and the exilarchs’ “scepter” reinforce one another as public symbols of Yeshuʿa’s asserted lineage. The significance of the lion’s image and its ability to convey in iconic form the ancestral claims of medieval Davidic dynasts is also reflected in the Judeo-Arabic story of Bustanay the exilarch, discussed in Chapter 1. The text, which can be read as a reaction against the privileges enjoyed by claimants of Davidic descent, was copied in 1041 and may have been distributed in order to bolster Nathan ben Abraham’s claim to leadership of the Palestinian yeshiva. Unlike other stories about Bustanay that circulated in the Middle Ages, the Judeo-Arabic version is a satire intended to undermine the social status associated with Davidic ancestry. Set in the first half of the seventh century, it describes how the young Bustanay and a rival, each of whom was seeking appointment as exilarch, were brought to the Umayyad ruler ʿUmar ibn alKhaṭṭāb to have their dispute settled. According to the text, as the two stood before the caliph, a mosquito bit Bustanay on the face, causing him to bleed. Bustanay nevertheless remained still, very much impressing ʿUmar, who ultimately decided the matter in his favor, appointed him exilarch, and gave him as a gift the daughter of the recently captured Persian emperor. In commemoration of this auspicious incident, the text explains, “the family of King David engraves the image of a mosquito on its seals.”112 The remainder of the story deals with the unfortunate consequences of Bustanay’s problematic relations with the Persian princess given to him by

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ʿUmar, relations that resulted in the irrevocable pollution of the entire exilarchal line. The text insists that, with the possible exception of individuals in faraway lands, no one from the Davidic dynasty is free of this genealogical blemish because Bustanay was the last living remnant of the Davidic line and he “did not marry anyone else, nor did he bear children with any other.”113 The story offers a direct challenge to the ancestral claims of the exilarchal dynasty, portraying their widely respected lineage as a source of shame and a cause for embarrassment. The centrality of ancestry is apparent from the text’s opening line, which introduces the story that follows as “the genealogy of the Davidic family [nasab al-dāwūdiyya].” This theme resurfaces at the end of the story when the text reflects on the meaning of the events described and concludes that “no one from the line of David remains unaffected by this incident.” If members of the exilarchal family sought to promote themselves through noble lineage, this version of the story of Bustanay squarely challenges their claims by insisting that the Davidic line was in fact irreparably marred by the shameful behavior of one of its ancestors. The mosquito, which, according to the text, ultimately became the iconic symbol of the Davidic family, is a crucial satiric element in this parody of the royal dynasty, and one that has not been sufficiently appreciated by scholars.114 The suggestion that the exilarchs chose a mosquito as their figural representation is an obvious mockery of the royal, historic, and messianic significance that medieval Jews ascribed to the lion traditionally associated with King David’s family. If a lion’s image evoked strength, nobility, and divine blessing, the mosquito signified the very opposite of these. The importance of the exilarchate’s seal as an articulation of Davidic lineage explains why it should be singled out for lampooning in a text so concerned with discrediting the ancestry of medieval Davidic dynasts.

* * * The material considered in this chapter reflects the intensity with which Near Eastern Jewish society began to regard matters of genealogy. Under the impact of Arab-Islamic society’s preoccupation with nasab, Jews showed, among other things, a renewed interest in tracing themselves to their biblical forebears. Focusing principally on claims to Davidic ancestry, we examined three overlapping strategies that were used to construct a public identity based on lineage. Each emerged during the period under consideration and can be correlated with the reconceptualization of the Davidic line discussed in Chapter



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1. New ways of thinking precipitated new behaviors and modes of expression. Taken together, this chapter and the previous one demonstrate how medieval Jews’ new understanding of the Davidic dynasty was integrally connected to wider social attitudes concerning genealogy. The importance that was attached to publicly recognized descent from David, like that associated with registration in the rolls of the naqīb al-ashrāf, ultimately derived from a shared belief in the status that noble ancestors could provide. In the next three chapters we shift to a consideration of realms in which the claim of Davidic ancestry played out and was in turn reinforced as a marker of social status. Conceived as a sequence of expanding social and religious frames of reference, our analysis in these chapters commences with an examination of the way biblical lineage was deployed in the context of political discourse in the medieval Jewish community.

Chapter 3

Ancestry as Authority: Lineage and Power in Near Eastern Jewish Society

In November 1011 a manifesto issued by a council of scholars at the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Qādir (d. 1031) was read aloud in mosques throughout the Near East and North Africa. The council, which included both Sunnīs and Shīʿīs and even several leaders of the ashrāf, had come to the conclusion, probably under some pressure from the Abbasid authorities, that the Fatimid rulers in Egypt lacked an authentic genealogy linking them to ʿAlī, the cousin and son-in-law of Muḥammad. The Fatimids could not, in other words, legitimately claim to be members of the Prophet’s household. Al-Qādir’s successor, the caliph al-Qāʾim, sponsored yet another anti-Fatimid manifesto in the year 1052 that, as far as our sources indicate, was similarly concerned with impugning the Fatimid dynasty by once again casting aspersions on its alleged ancestry.1 These public declarations were part of a larger campaign waged against the Fatimids, a Shīʿī dynasty that emerged during the tenth century as rivals to the Sunnī, Abbasid caliphate. The conflict between the Fatimids and the Abbasids was no mere war of words, however: in the year 1056–57, at the height of Fatimid political and military might, a pro-Fatimid general succeeded in laying claim to the Abbasid capital itself. Among the many things that the anti-Fatimid manifestoes reveal is the important role that genealogy played in political discourse in the medieval Islamic world. A source of authority and validation, it could also become the staging ground for vicious, delegitimizing attacks. The Abbasid caliphs’ efforts enable us to contextualize the new political functions that genealogy and genealogical thinking had come to serve within medieval Jewish society as well. I have argued that the emphasis of earlier



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historians on the political role of the nesiʾim tended to obscure the fact that they reflected an intensified valuation of genealogy within the Jewish community. Nevertheless, biblical dynasts—and among them nesiʾim—sometimes did occupy offices of leadership. In such situations we are again in a position to recognize the extent to which developments within the Jewish community mirrored realities and practices in the ambient Islamic environment. Focusing on texts relating to a number of political controversies in the Middle Ages, this chapter highlights the ways in which such controversies were conceptualized as disputes between competing lineages. For Jews, as for Muslims, genealogy had come to play a critical role in the articulation and legitimization of political power.2

The Controversies of Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī Above we alluded to several texts connected with Saʿadya ben Joseph alFayyūmī’s famous conflict with the Palestinian gaʾon Ben Meir. At the center of that controversy was a disparity of two days between the computations of the Palestinian and Iraqi authorities for the Jewish calendar year commencing in the fall of 921. Saʿadya, who had recently arrived in Baghdad, played an important role in that dispute, championing the Iraqi side in letters and missives addressed both to the Palestinian gaʾon himself, as well as to communities throughout the Near East.3 Over the course of the controversy, which appears to have lasted through that year and into the following one, both sides issued attacks that at times were surprisingly venomous in tone. The dispute with Ben Meir was in fact only one of several political controversies in which Saʿadya became involved over the course of his career. Some years later, after having been appointed head of the Sura yeshiva, he once again became embroiled in conflict, this time with a cohort of Iraqi leaders that included his erstwhile supporter in the Ben Meir dispute, the exilarch David ben Zakkay, the wealthy Baghdad merchant Khalaf ibn Sarjāda and Kohen Ṣedeq, the gaʾon of Pumbedita.4 This second controversy was allegedly triggered by Saʿadya’s refusal to validate a ruling issued by the court of the exilarch, although at issue appear to have been deeper disagreements about the respective prerogatives of gaonic and exilarchal authority. Like the broadsides exchanged during the earlier calendar controversy, those issued by the two sides in this conflict contain scathing ad hominem attacks. Saʿadya proves himself to be particularly adept at coining mocking and derisive epithets to refer to his opponents.5



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Ancestry played a significant role in the texts produced during these various conflicts. On one hand we observe the way it was used to promote oneself and to legitimize one’s entitlement to power. But we can also recognize a second motive in its deployment, namely, to discredit an opponent’s legitimacy by impugning his lineage. Indeed, the aspersions cast on an opponent’s lineage is one of the most shocking aspects of this literature. An analysis of these highly polemical texts demonstrates that ancestry constituted an important element in the discursive arsenal that competing religious and political authorities used as they contended with one another. We begin with the earlier calendar controversy. As noted, in the course of that dispute Ben Meir emphasized his descent from Judah ha-Nasi and Rabban Gamliel.6 In asserting this pedigree Ben Meir sought to buttress his claim to exclusive control over the calendar. Ben Meir insisted that he was entitled to proclaim the calendar not only because he was the supreme religious authority in the land of Israel, but also by virtue of his ancestry: because he was a member of the house of the Palestinian patriarchate to which the privilege was historically entrusted. His right to determine the calendar was thus a function of both geography and genealogy; the Iraqi authorities were, by contrast, mere interlopers whose intervention lacked all legitimacy. While we cannot be entirely sure when he put forward his claim, we know that Saʿadya too relied on ancestry as a means of substantiating his status. According to several sources, he claimed to be a descendant of the mishnaic rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa—a claim quite possibly reflected in the decision to name his son Dosa.7 And as we see below, in the context of his later dispute with the Iraqi leadership, he also claimed to be a descendant of the biblical patriarch Judah, through his son Shelah. Ben Meir used genealogy not only to laud his own noble origins; he also set out to discredit his rival by impugning his family history. In one of his letters, Ben Meir attacks Saʿadya by maligning his father, whom he accuses of various sinful practices and portrays as dying a disgraced man. Ben Meir claimed to have it from reliable witnesses that in Egypt Saʿadya’s father “ate the soup of abomination” and “struck a hammer for idolatrous worship,” the latter possibly alluding to the sounding of the wooden clapper used in Eastern churches to call the faithful to prayer.8 Ben Meir adds that Saʿadya’s father later died in Jaffa, having been forced to flee from Egypt. While this is one of numerous insults leveled by each side during the course of the controversy, it is significant for its attention to the implications of lineage. Such slurs offer a window onto the increasingly important place that genealogical matters had



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come to play in Jewish society generally during this period. And their use in political propaganda attests to their relevance for the way Jews and others understood such notions as entitlement, privilege, and status. Turning to Saʿadya’s subsequent controversy with David ben Zakkay, Ibn Sarjāda, and Kohen Ṣedeq, we find once again that lineage played a critical role in the rhetoric of the two sides. As exilarch, David ben Zakkay could of course point to his own venerable descent from King David. In the context of the controversy we also learn about a genealogical claim evidently put forward by Saʿadya—namely that he was a direct descendant of Shelah, one of the sons of the biblical patriarch Judah.9 While it is not clear how such a pedigree might have been deployed in the context of this dispute—perhaps it was intended to match the Judahite genealogy of the exilarch himself—it is noteworthy that it should have come to the fore in that particular connection. As we see over and again, political disputes tended to produce an intensified association of individuals with their ancestors. In this exchange, too, the opposing sides invested energy not only in promoting their own lineage but in distorting and maligning the lineage claimed by their opponents. Saʿadya was defamed with accusations reminiscent of those lodged against him by Ben Meir. In one letter he is rather shockingly characterized as “a descendant of proselytes and not of Jewish stock . . . everyone will testify that he is the descendant of proselytes and that his ancestors were circumcised and immersed [i.e., converted to Judaism].”10 Such an insult obviously presumes the idea that non-Jewish roots are, in and of themselves, degrading and that Saʿadya was in some sense tainted by his alleged forebears’ origins. At the same time, Saʿadya’s alleged descent from Shelah and therefore the biblical Judah was also taken up and subjected to ridicule. Saʿadya’s opponents focused their attention on the fact that he only made this lineage known in the midst of the controversy, insinuating, of course, that he had concocted it. In a similar vein Khalaf ibn Sarjāda slanders Saʿadya by means of his lineage, accusing him of being a “nameless villain whose forefathers may be compared to sheepdogs.”11 Saʿadya, for his part, disparaged Kohen Ṣedeq in like manner, referring to him in Sefer ha-galuy, his account of the controversy, as the “son of gravediggers.”12 In characterizing Kohen Ṣedeq as such, Saʿadya was not simply suggesting that the Pumbedita gaʾon came from humble origins, he was also impugning his status as a legitimate priest—an ancestral status that, as his name suggests, was of some significance to both him and his family. Indeed, the kind of willful contact with the dead alleged by Saʿadya would have implied to contemporaries



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that Kohen Ṣedeq’s priestly lineage was either severely compromised or fabricated. The earlier controversy with Ben Meir and the later conflict with David ben Zakkay demonstrate the way genealogy was deployed both as a means of self-promotion and as a weapon to undercut one’s opponents.

“The Exceedingly Rebellious Kohanim of Ifrīqiya” Davidic dynasts, we have repeatedly pointed out, were not the only members of medieval Jewish society who could boast of a distinguished and unbroken biblical lineage. Priests, too, claimed a special status within Near Eastern Jewish society that was increasingly articulated and understood in terms of its genealogical implications.13 Their status was expressed in the first place through ritual, much of which took place in the synagogue and was therefore of a highly public nature. Perhaps the most significant indicator of a kohen’s importance in the eyes of his fellow Jews was his right to bless the congregation during the daily prayer services. The privileges of being called to the Torah scroll first during public readings, to be the first to sign legal documents, and to lead the Grace after Meals are further manifestations of the status of kohanim.14 Goitein observed that the care taken by medieval writers always to include the title kohen when identifying someone of priestly lineage—for example, Elijah ha-Kohen, ʿEli haKohen, and so on—speaks no less to the importance and respect that were imputed to such individuals within Jewish society.15 A letter—it is referred to as such in a copyist’s note, though in reality it has much more the feel and tone of a piece of invective—attributed to the Iraqi gaʾon Hayya concerning “the exceedingly rebellious kohanim of Ifrīqiya” deals with claims of priestly lineage and offers yet another illustration of the important role that genealogical claims could play in the political discourse of Near Eastern Jewish society.16 Though the circumstances in which the text was composed are a matter of debate among historians, the letter nonetheless provides a clear view of the way lineage came to occupy an increasingly important position in the justification of authority and privilege in the medieval Jewish community. From the text of the letter itself it appears that a group of individuals of North African origin had, to the consternation of others, assumed various leadership functions within the Jewish community. It seems, moreover, that this party had justified its actions through an appeal to its priestly lineage. Menahem Ben-Sasson has plausibly suggested that this text should be read in light of a struggle that erupted toward the end of the tenth



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century between two priestly families—a “veteran” family of local, Palestinian origin and a “new” family with roots in the Maghrib—for control over the Palestinian yeshiva.17 According to Ben-Sasson, the letter was directed against Joseph ha-Kohen ben Menaḥem, an upstart with political pretensions who descended from an important priestly family hailing from North Africa. Along with a group of supporters in Fustat, Joseph had been waging a campaign to replace Samuel ha-Kohen ben Joseph, the sitting gaʾon.18 The text comprises twenty-four stanzas, a structure that perhaps alludes to the twenty-four divisions of the Temple priesthood described in rabbinic sources.19 Each of the first twenty-two stanzas begins with the formula “Every kohen who. . . . ” Following this opening formula is the description of an offense of which the “rebellious priests,” it is implied, are guilty. The stanzas are arranged alphabetically according to the first letter of the description of the offense, with the letters shin and tav appearing twice in order to complete the twenty-four stanzas. Thus, the first stanza begins “Every kohen who hurries [aṣ ve-doḥeq] after priestly gifts,” the second begins “Every kohen who is deceitful and mendacious [baday ve-shaqran],” and the third begins “Every kohen who is vulgar and haughty [gas ruaḥ u-gevah lev].”20 Following each of the offenses is a judgment about those who would behave in the manner described, often supported by a quote from a biblical or rabbinic source. Thus, according to the text, a priest who avidly seeks priestly gifts “is known to be the descendant [mi-tamṣit] of the sons of ʿEli,” a reference to the gluttonous and reproachable actions of Hophni and Phineas described in 1 Samuel 2. A dishonest priest “is known to be the son of a woman whose virginity at the time of her betrothal was subject to doubt [mukat ʿeṣ], or the son of a woman whose status invalidates the priesthood.” And a priest who is haughty “is known to be a Hasmonean slave, in accordance with that which Rabbi Judah said in the name of Samuel: ‘Whoever claims to be from the house of the Hasmoneans is a slave’ ” [BT Qiddushin 70b]. Portraying a rival as the offspring of a biblical figure of questionable character, impugning the status of one of his female ancestors, and ascribing to him slave origins—these constitute some of the most common ways of challenging an opponent’s legitimacy and, as we shall see, were also used effectively in attacks directed at claimants to Davidic ancestry. The final two paragraphs present a contrast to the preceding catalogue of iniquity and judgment. Though they begin with the same introductory formula as the preceding stanzas, these lines offer descriptions of laudable behavior. The twenty-third stanza reads: “Every kohen who studies [shone] two laws in the morning and two laws in the evening, who is honest with his brother,



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who walks uprightly with his people . . . is known to be a righteous priest from among the descendants of Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest.” The twenty-fourth and final stanza states: Every kohen who is righteous [tamim] in his actions, proper in his behavior and honorable in his deeds, who attends the synagogue and the study house morning and evening, and who guards himself from all manner of evil and impurity—such a one is surely of the descendants of Zadok the priest and Jehoiada the priest and merits having the holy spirit rest upon him. About such a one it is said: “But the levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary [when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me]” [Ezekiel 44:15]. May the Holy One in His mercy bring the redeemer and send the prophet Elijah to clarify the priestly lineage and remove our impurities, as it is written: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness” [Malachi 3:3]. The recurring distinction between legitimate and illegitimate lineages in this text offers impressive evidence of the social and political importance of genealogical status. A careful reading of the text reveals that its focus on ancestry actually constitutes a reaction in kind to a prior emphasis on such issues initiated by those against whom it is addressed. As noted, the letter is most likely a reaction to the campaign on behalf of the candidacy of Joseph ha-Kohen ben Menaḥem, a campaign in which genealogy seems to have played a critical role. The fourth stanza explicitly refers to earlier concerns about lineage that were raised by that camp in its pursuit of the gaonate. The text chastises a priest who “pursues [doresh] hidden subjects, inquires into the ancestry of families, and seeks to disqualify his priestly brothers.” The “rebellious kohanim” are thus depicted as having tried to advance their position by raising questions about the priestly lineage of Samuel ha-Kohen ben Joseph and his family. The letter’s focus is thus not an isolated or idiosyncratic expression of concern with lineage, but testimony to a discourse in which both sides viewed genealogical affiliations as an issue of great importance. Bearing this earlier stage in mind, we are also in a better position to understand the letter’s intended effect: just as the cohort around Joseph ha-Kohen had previously tried to undermine the family that controlled the Palestinian yeshiva by impugning its lineage, so in this text we observe the latter casting aspersions on the touted priestly lineage of its usurping rivals.



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The text replies to the genealogical assaults of Joseph ha-Kohen’s cohort measure-for-measure. Tellingly, the conclusion of the fourth stanza, cited in the previous paragraph, asserts that a priest who raises doubts about the lineage of another priest “is not a priest at all—and only through deceit were his ancestors recognized as such.” In a similar vein, the fifth stanza insists that contentious and quarrelsome priests are “not from the seed of Aaron, but instead from the seed of On son of Peleth,” referring to a Reubenite who participated in the biblical rebellion of Korah. The allusion is particularly apt since the leaders of Korah’s rebellion questioned Moses’ and Aaron’s unique priestly sanctity, much as the “rebellious kohanim” were attempting to overthrow the leadership of the priestly family of Samuel ha-Kohen ben Joseph. Furthermore, as a non-levite, the figure of On reinforces the idea that Samuel ha-Kohen’s rivals are themselves of inferior genealogical standing.21

The Letter of Joshua ha-Kohen ben Yaʾir Both the assertion of sacred lineage as a means of achieving power and its disparagement by political rivals are similarly reflected in the letter of Joshua ha-Kohen ben Yaʾir, introduced in the previous chapter. As we recall, the letter, written in the first quarter of the eleventh century, describes with some dismay the recent political success of an individual who claimed—falsely, it is insisted—to be a member of the Davidic line. The letter emphasizes the way his alleged pedigree—for which, it notes, he provided a forged record—was prized by members of the Jewish community. But if the letter demonstrates the way ancestry could be used to advance an individual’s bid for power, it also reveals how a challenger might exploit his rival’s genealogy just as effectively. In fact, Joshua ha-Kohen’s disparagement of the self-proclaimed nasi is ultimately of a piece with the latter’s supposed imposture, for underlying both is a fundamental agreement about the importance and the relevance of genealogical claims. Implicitly acknowledging the value of ancestry, Joshua ha-Kohen merely insists that the individual in question had misrepresented his. Joshua ha-Kohen’s letter does not merely dispute the Davidic pretensions of the “so-called nasi”; it posits the existence of other, more authentic lineage traditions within Jewish society. As we noted earlier, Joshua laments the genealogical uncertainty that reigns in his day: “We are alone in the exile, without shepherd, or prophet, or urim ve-tumim of which we might inquire in order to distinguish



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between crooked and straight, good and evil, and the one who is pedigreed and the one who lacks a pedigree.” Despite this confusion regarding matters of ­ancestry—which, he implies, might explain the success of the self-proclaimed nasi’s deception—there are some pedigrees, he argues, that can be trusted as legitimate. Nonetheless, in the exile we can distinguish between a priest and a Levite and between a Levite and an Israelite on the basis of tradition and legacy. And as for the priest whose priestly brothers declare him to be a priest, and whose townsmen testify to that effect on his behalf . . . should he travel to a distant place and come to spread his hands and bless Israel with the divine name, he may not be prevented from doing so. Woe to the one who says: “Where is your pedigree?” Rather, he blesses and enjoys the status of a priest.22 Joshua ha-Kohen suggests that as opposed to the unsubstantiated genealogical traditions of the Davidic family, those of the priestly line—of which, we should note, he is himself a member—are both verified by tradition and sanctioned by Jewish custom. What emerges from Joshua ha-Kohen’s letter, then, is an implicit contest between Davidic and priestly lineages, a contest that, as we will shortly see, recurred several times during the eleventh century.23

Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s Campaign for the Gaonate Competition between royal and priestly lineage is a particularly conspicuous motif in a series of texts bearing on the political struggles between Daniel ben ʿAzarya and his son David on the one hand, and the descendants of the Palestinian gaʾon Solomon ha-Kohen ben Josiah (d. 1025) on the other.24 In these conflicts Daniel and David drew heavily on their Davidic lineage, arguing on the basis of it that they possessed a unique entitlement to authority over Jewish communal affairs. An opposing and complementary genealogical argument was put forward by their priestly rivals who maintained that, in their descent from Aaron, they enjoyed a superior claim to leadership. Both sides insisted that God had chosen their ancestral line above all others. Documentary sources reveal how Daniel ben ʿAzarya was able to invoke his Davidic lineage so as to further his political ambitions. In a missive addressed to North Africa and dated to the year 1051, Daniel lashes out at individuals who



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apparently sided with his rivals for the headship of the Palestinian yeshiva. He emphasizes his right to authority over the Maghrib on the basis of hereditary qualifications, reminding his readers that “the rule of the House of David is the just rule”: Is it not clear and well known that the heads of the exile, our ancestors, peace be upon them, were the heads of [your] territory and [your] leaders? [You] ought to follow in the path of [your] wise and honorable ancestors . . . for the rule of the House of David is the just rule. And we have found neither in the Torah, nor in the Prophets, nor in the Writings a command to rule other than that of our ancestors’ house. Far be it from our Maghribī brothers to transgress the command of their Creator! I hope that they will return to the straight path and remember the command of the Creator and heed [the words] “And after that, the Children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king” [Hosea 3:5].25 Daniel makes two points. First, he insists that his Maghribī addressees are obliged to back him in his campaign for the gaonate inasmuch as he is a member of the exilarchal family, which, he argues, historically enjoyed jurisdiction over their territory.26 Second, he claims that rightful leadership in fact belongs exclusively to the Davidic family insofar as only it has a divine mandate to rule. In making these arguments Daniel effectively emphasizes two different facets of his ancestry: his immediate descent from the family of the Babylonian exilarchs and his more distant kinship to David. The extent to which Daniel ben ʿAzarya was able to cultivate a public persona dominated by his royal pedigree is revealed in letters to and about him in which others make reference to his noble ancestry as well. In one such missive, discussed at greater length in the next chapter, Daniel is suggestively described as “the son of David.”27 And in another, introduced in Chapter 1, a writer repeatedly emphasizes Daniel’s membership in the royal line.28 Against this background we can better appreciate the genealogical themes in ʿEli ha-Kohen’s poem in honor of Daniel ben ʿAzarya. We encountered this text in the previous chapter, noting in particular the way it reflected the importance of documented lineages and the way the recitation of a sequence of noble and ennobling ancestors might serve as a form of panegyric. But it is more than simply a celebration of Daniel’s royal lineage; it is also an assault on the priestly ancestry of Daniel’s political rivals. I thus now return



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to that text, which is a window onto the way political conflict could be conceptualized as a dynastic struggle between royal and priestly lineages. The poem draws conspicuously on the form of an ʿavoda, a genre of liturgical poetry that describes the Temple service on the Day of Atonement.29 Central to such compositions is the special sanctity of the line of Aaron, whose descendants were entrusted with carrying out the day’s expiatory rites. Accordingly, the first part of a typical ʿavoda contains a sweeping review of biblical history, beginning with an account of God’s creation of the world and culminating with a description of the divine appointment of Aaron as high priest. The consecration of Aaron and his descendants is presented as the outcome of a succession of divine selections that focus first on the children of Israel, then on the tribe of Levi, and finally on Aaron himself. This first section of an ʿavoda thus dramatizes the unique holiness of the priesthood and its centrality within the cosmic scheme.30 The divine appointment of Aaron and his descendants having thus been established, the second part offers a vivid description of the most critical of the priesthood’s functions: its performance of the Day of Atonement ritual. The first one hundred lines of ʿEli ha-Kohen’s composition closely follow the pattern of the initial section of an ʿavoda. The text opens with a lyrical prelude, a reshut (lines 1–28), which is followed by a description of God’s omnipotence (lines 29–55). Following this is a brief review of the seven days of creation (lines 56–64), the generations of the patriarchs (lines 65–77), the exodus from Egypt (lines 78–91) and the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai (lines 92–100). Continuing in this manner, ʿEli ha-Kohen’s composition then turns to the selection of the tribe of Levi from among the other Israelite tribes (lines 101–4) and the choice of Aaron as high priest from among the other Levites (lines 105–9): The third [of Jacob’s twelve sons] accompanied the “betrothed” [i.e., the people of Israel]; Levi, whose lineage was blessed with Asaph, Heman, and Hosah ........................... And as for the one affectionately exalted above all his brothers [the high priest], Who forgives sins and makes them vanish, Who spreads his hands and blesses, Who removes guilt through holy offerings— [Of him it is written:] “Your tumim and Your urim [belong to the loyal one whom You tested at Massah]” [Deuteronomy 33:8].31



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At this point, however, when the historical introduction to an ʿavoda would normally lead into a description of the service on the Day of Atonement, ʿEli ha-Kohen’s poem conspicuously parts ways with its literary models. Despite what has just been said of Levi’s chosenness, line 110 defiantly declares the unrivaled glory of the tribe of Judah: The fourth [of Jacob’s sons] was victorious in his accomplishments, A leader and a commander by destiny, Whose flag was a banner to rally around, The prince of God in his glory. What follow are forty lines lauding Judah, King David’s descent from that tribe, and the meritorious deeds of some of the righteous Davidic kings. This section dwarfs the previous one (forty-four lines on Judah and David as opposed to a mere eight on Levi and Aaron) and is studded with scriptural citations emphasizing the eternal covenant between God and the royal line, such as Genesis 49:10 (“The scepter shall not depart from Judah”) and Psalm 89:4 (“I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn to my servant David”). Of particular relevance to Daniel ben ʿAzarya is the last of the Davidic descendants identified by name, “Zerubbabel, the exilarch,” to whom the poet relates the divine promise to King David: “I will establish your offspring forever, I will confirm your throne for all generations” (Psalm 89:5). In its enthusiastic celebration of the virtues of the line of Judah in a poetic form commonly associated with the unique status of the tribe of Levi and the descendants of Aaron, ʿEli ha-Kohen’s composition invites a comparison between the royal and priestly dynasties. Had he omitted Levi entirely we might have easily concluded that ʿEli ha-Kohen merely adapted the ʿavoda form to suit an entirely unrelated social function. But Levi does appear in the text, and in it is utterly vanquished by his younger brother Judah. The implication seems fairly clear: God’s chosen dynasty is the House of David, not the House of Aaron. Form and content in this work thus reinforce one another in expressing the triumph of royal over priestly lineage.

David ben Daniel’s Campaign for Authority Between the years 1082 and 1094, the nasi David ben Daniel set himself up as the autonomous leader of Egyptian Jewry, replacing the former head of the Jews



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of Egypt, Mevorakh ben Saʿadya—a close friend of the priestly family in control of the Palestinian yeshiva—and encroaching in various ways on the authority of the Palestinian gaʾon, Evyatar ha-Kohen ben Elijah. Over the course of his twelve-year tenure as head of the Jews, David assumed many of the Palestinian gaʾon’s customary functions, going significantly beyond those claimed by his predecessors in that office. He collected revenues from the slaughter of animals, established a high court comparable to that of the yeshiva, and ultimately went so far as to assert control over the proclamation of the Jewish calendar. The pinnacle of David’s career seems to have come sometime between August 1089 and February 1092, when he was proclaimed exilarch. At the peak of his power, David had not only consolidated control over the Jewish community in Egypt, he won support in various Palestinian towns as well. The “Scroll of Evyatar,” a source hostile to David, acknowledges that he controlled the towns of Ascalon, Caesarea, Haifa, Beirut, and Jubayl, and that he even tried to extend his authority to Tyre, where the Palestinian yeshiva was then based. David’s efforts to create a center of independent regional authority in Egypt and to recalibrate relations between Egypt and the Palestinian gaonate ultimately led to the institutionalization of the office of the head of the Jews of Egypt.32 In pursuing his political goals, David, like his father, drew heavily on popular respect for his ancestry. The letter discussed in the previous chapter addressed to him by a loyal supporter from Tyre demonstrates how profoundly his successes were understood as a fulfillment of his Davidic ancestry.33 As we noted, the letter was written on the occasion of David’s assumption of the title exilarch. The writer congratulates David on attaining “the prestigious rank of [his] ancestors” and artfully invokes the names of some sixteen of his biblical forebears. The significance of royal lineage is similarly on display in the panegyric by ʿEli ben Amram that was likely composed for David as well.34 In lauding its subject as a model of Jewish communal leadership, the composition underscores a fundamental connection between noble ancestry and political authority.

A Sermon on the House of David The Davidic family’s unique right to authority within the Jewish community is argued with considerable force in a fragmentary sermon that was evidently composed in Palestine and was preserved among the Geniza papers.35 The dating of the text is a matter of dispute. Naphtali Wieder, who edited it, initially suggested that it ought to be connected to the conflict between David



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ben Daniel and Evyatar ha-Kohen at the end of the eleventh century.36 In a later publication, however, Wieder favored a much earlier date, linking it to events at the beginning of the tenth century.37 More recently, Elchanan Reiner has suggested dating it to the thirteenth century.38 My reading of the text leads me to agree with Wieder’s initial suggestion. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding its composition, however, the sermon is an unmistakable expression of the tendency to view leadership within the Jewish community as deriving from ancestral privilege. In its current form the sermon, which is cut off at the end, touches on three topics: the study of Torah, charity, and the rule of the House of David. The latter is given considerably more space than the other two and is treated in so passionate a manner that Wieder was surely correct in concluding that the text “is anchored in historical realities” and reflects a situation in which the Davidic line “was in the midst of a difficult battle over its standing and in need of defense.”39 A careful weave of passages from the Bible and from rabbinic sources, the sermon presents a strong argument for the Davidic family’s incontrovertible right to leadership. The discussion begins with David himself, the source of the family’s sanctity, and emphasizes his great service to the Jewish nation—in particular his victories over its enemies and his undertaking the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Such acts of generosity, the text insists, did not cease with David’s death but remain with the nation eternally. The nation is therefore in perpetual need of the royal line, for “just as the world cannot exist without salt, so Israel cannot exist without the House of David.”40 Various biblical verses are adduced in support of the idea of the Davidic family’s unconditional right to rule: “the scepter shall not depart from Judah” (Genesis 49:10); “I have made a covenant with my chosen one” (Psalm 89:4); and “Do you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?” (2 Chronicles 13:5). The various divine assurances that were in this way communicated to David and his offspring make it certain, the text argues, that “his seed and his kingdom shall exist for eternity.” Given the House of David’s unique entitlement to authority, the text insists that those who come to its assistance perform a meritorious religious deed: “Whoever acts with kindness towards the House of David is regarded as if he offered a sacrifice on the Temple altar.” Conversely, one who challenges the royal family is depicted not only as deserving of punishment but as violating a divine command. It is on this note that the sermon concludes with an admonition in the strongest possible language: “And as for the kingship of the House of David . . . all who rebel against it are punishable by death.”



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The sermon’s repeated references to the Temple—crediting David with its construction, and asserting that kindness toward the Davidic family is equivalent to the offering of a sacrifice—raise the possibility that here again we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict between two opposing ancestral claims to authority, the one Davidic and the other priestly. The strong connection posited here between the Davidic line and the Temple, the latter more often invoked by those of priestly lineage, suggests an attempt to co-opt the sacred symbol of a dynastic rival. Typically portrayed as a sign of God’s eternal compact with the descendants of Aaron, the Temple has been recast as a Davidic institution whose ritual is perpetuated through fealty to the royal line. There are other indications as well that the sermon was conceived in reaction to competing claims that were being advanced by priestly opponents of the Davidic line. As we see below, the “Scroll of Evyatar,” a text celebrating the victory of the priestly family of Solomon ha-Kohen over its Davidic rivals Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel, makes much of God’s “covenant of salt” with the priesthood. For the author of that work, the “covenant of salt” symbolizes God’s unique and unconditional compact with Aaron and his descendants to the exclusion of all other dynasties, including that of King David. Thus, in asserting the existence of a divine “covenant of salt” with the Davidic line—scriptural verses can be found to support either position—our sermon appears to be in conversation with the position laid out in the “Scroll of Evyatar.” Moreover, in both the sermon and the “Scroll” we find the idea that God’s covenant with each of the respective dynasties was strengthened by a divine oath through which that dynasty’s perpetuity was further guaranteed. On a number of key points, then, the two texts seem to mirror one another, suggesting that they may indeed be part of an exchange—either direct or indirect—concerning the relative merits of the Davidic and priestly lines. While we cannot be certain about the sermon’s provenance, Wieder’s initial proposition that it is connected with the conflict between David ben Daniel and Evyatar ha-Kohen makes good sense. At the very least, however, the text is an important testimony to the tendency to conceptualize political rivalries as contests between competing royal and priestly lineages.

The Story of Bustanay A powerful reaction against claims to authority on the basis of Davidic lineage is to be found in a text that has already been mentioned several times:



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the Judeo-Arabic version of the story of Bustanay, a scion of the family of the exilarchs who allegedly lived in the middle of the seventh century. The text focuses on several episodes: his miraculous deliverance from a plague in which all other living members of the Davidic line perished, his appointment to the post of exilarch after making a winning impression on the caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, and his siring of children with a captive Persian princess with the result that they and all subsequent members of the Davidic line were genealogically tainted. Most of the fragments of the text discovered in the Geniza belong to a manuscript that was copied in the year 1040/41, in the midst of the conflict between Solomon ben Judah and Nathan ben Abraham over control of the Palestinian gaonate. According to Moshe Gil, the handwriting is that of Sahlān ben Abraham, leader of the Iraqi community in Fustat, who appears to have taken Nathan’s side in the controversy. Gil has conjectured that Sahlān may have copied the text as a way of discrediting Daniel ben ʿAzarya, a staunch supporter of Solomon ben Judah.41 While plausible, Gil’s suggestion is as yet unconfirmed. But if the circumstances surrounding the dissemination of this text in the middle of the eleventh century remain obscure, it is nonetheless an important witness to the way medieval Jewish political discourse was dominated by notions of ancestral privilege. The Bustanay story should be interpreted as a refutation of claims to authority on the basis of royal lineage like those put forward by Daniel ben ʿAzarya and his son, though it may not be possible to link the text directly to them. As noted, the material in the story focuses on the purported noble ancestry, the nasab, of the Davidic line, something that is made clear in the text’s opening line. After recounting Bustanay’s problematic cohabitation with a captive Persian princess—the narrative emphasizes that in violation of rabbinic law, Bustanay did not manumit her before having intercourse with her—the text repeatedly refers to its impact on the royal lineage, referring to “the taint” that consequently affected all of Bustanay’s descendants, the “tarnished pedigree” of the Davidic line, and “the foreign element that has corrupted” Bustanay’s heirs. Though evidently constructed from earlier narrative components, some of which actually seem to have been written in praise of Bustanay, in its current form the story deals with the disqualification of the Davidic line as a result either of Bustanay’s stupidity or, more problematically, his unrestrained sexuality. Through miscegenation, the text suggests, the once noble royal line reduced itself to slave status, contaminated itself with the blood of foreigners, and even opened itself up to questions regarding its authentic Jewishness.



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Such a portrayal of Bustanay surely departs from the way individuals claiming descent from King David saw him. As noted in Chapter 1, Bustanay’s name appears in every Davidic genealogy that has come down to us from the Middle Ages. It is difficult to imagine that those who compiled such genealogies and who went to the trouble of listing Bustanay as one of their direct ancestors would have done so had they believed that they were effectively depriving themselves of the very status they were trying to secure. The existence of a more positive image of Bustanay in the Middle Ages is moreover suggested by the poem, discussed above, that ʿEli ha-Kohen composed in honor of Daniel ben ʿAzarya. Among other things, the nasi is praised in that poem for being “a spark of Bustanay.” While Davidic dynasts may have been constrained to keep Bustanay’s name in their ancestor lists out of a concern for completeness, no such motive can explain his appearance in ʿEli ha-Kohen’s poem, where his inclusion seems to be a matter of deliberate choice. All this underscores the fact that the Judeo-Arabic story of Bustanay is best read as a calculated and politically motivated distortion of the royal family’s lineage.

The “Scroll of Evyatar” As we have already had occasion to note several times, the descendants of Solomon ha-Kohen, who controlled the Palestinian yeshiva during much of the eleventh century, mounted an aggressive campaign in reaction to the efforts of the nesiʾim Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel to capitalize on respect for their royal lineage. In the previous chapter we noted how various members of that family signed their letters with a concise genealogy linking them directly to the biblical Aaron. The superiority of the priestly lineage of the Palestinian geʾonim over other competing ancestral claims also finds expression in a letter written by one of the family’s supporters, Saʿadya he-Ḥaver of Hebron, to a scion of the family, Evyatar ha-Kohen, after the latter was appointed in the fall of 1081 to be his father’s successor as gaʾon. In the missive, Saʿadya praises his addressee, emphasizing in particular his superiority to an unnamed rival—David ben Daniel, no doubt—who is not of priestly descent. Saʿadya refers to Evyatar as “a sprinkler, the son of a sprinkler,” alluding to a ritual purification ceremony performed by the Temple priests, and writes that it is entirely appropriate for a person of such stature to be dismissive toward “one who is neither himself a sprinkler, nor the son of a sprinkler.”42



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An even more direct and hostile response to the argument of entitlement on the basis of Davidic lineage is to be found in the famous chronicle composed by the same Evyatar ha-Kohen, known as the “Scroll of Evyatar.”43 Composed in 1094, the “Scroll” commemorates the downfall in the spring of that year of David ben Daniel as the head of Egypt’s Jewish community and the reinstatement in that office of Mevorakh ben Saʿadya, a close ally of the Palestinian gaonate. The text narrates at considerable length the details of David and his father’s efforts to usurp the historic prerogatives of Evyatar’s family and portrays David’s defeat at the hands of Mevorakh as an act of divine mercy toward the priestly geʾonim and their institution. In Evyatar’s words, he wrote the text “in order to give glory and praise [to God] and to publicize the great miracle that the Lord God of Hosts wrought for the children of Aaron.” The main portion of the text consists of the denunciation of two related offenses allegedly perpetrated by David ben Daniel during his tenure in office as head of the Jews: his claim to the title of exilarch with authority over Palestine and his intercalation of the Jewish calendar. Before turning to these specific concerns, however, Evyatar provides his readers with a broad introduction in which he frames his family’s conflict with Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel as one of competing biblical lineages. He addresses the alleged merits of the royal line, comparing them negatively with those of the priesthood. Inasmuch as Evyatar is here responding to arguments advanced by his Davidic rivals, this section is, as we have already pointed out, one of the strongest testimonies to the way David ben Daniel and his father must have tried to make use of their venerated lineage. The purpose of this section is to establish the inherent superiority of the priestly family and to thereby underscore that the ultimate fall of David ben Daniel was entirely in keeping with God’s own plan. In this opening section Evyatar relies heavily on the notion of a divine covenant with the family of Aaron as the basis for priestly superiority. As we have seen above, the idea of a divine covenant was popular among the advocates of Davidic authority as well. In Evyatar’s argument the divine covenant with the priestly line is unique insofar as it is not subject to annulment. Discussing God’s promise of the priesthood to the biblical Phineas and his descendants, Evyatar emphasizes that it is something that “will not cease for all eternity, something that is unconditional [she-eno bi-tenay].” Evyatar contends that God’s compact with David, by contrast, was of a conditional nature: “We say that three things were given [to the children of Israel] conditionally: the land of Israel, the Temple and the monarchy of the House of David.” Evyatar thus insists that a distinction be made between the priestly



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and Davidic covenants. While the former was eternal and unconditional, the latter was subject to abrogation. Having argued for the conditional nature of the Davidic covenant, Evyatar then proceeds to describe how its nullification came about. In the days of Jehoiachin, he asserts, “the kingdom of the House of David was nullified and the divine oath invalidated.” Citing a rabbinic tradition according to which the messiah was born on the day the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, Evyatar draws the further conclusion that “all who came after are therefore disqualified.” Evyatar also highlights the iniquitous behavior of various Davidic kings, including Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, and others, who, in his words, “behaved sinfully.” He recalls, in this connection, the innocent blood shed by Manasseh, the closure of the houses of learning by Ahaz, the idol made by Ahaz’s mother, and the obliteration of the divine names by Jehoiakim. Evyatar concludes this catalog of sinfulness perpetrated by the line of David with the bold charge: “Thus, on account of its sins, the House of David deserves to be cut off!” After reviewing the disgraces of the royal line during the biblical period, the “Scroll” shifts to recount its excesses in more recent times. First comes Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s unjust displacement of Joseph ha-Kohen ben Solomon, Evyatar’s uncle and the next in line for appointment as gaʾon at the time of Solomon ben Judah’s death in 1052. Evyatar maintains that as punishment for usurping Joseph’s position Daniel was afflicted with a serious illness from which he ultimately died. After a brief account of the gaonate of Evyatar’s father, Elijah ha-Kohen ben Solomon, who took office at the death of Daniel ben ʿAzarya in 1062, the “Scroll” proceeds to chronicle the ignominious career of David ben Daniel, who is significantly introduced as “the descendant of Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, and Jehoiachin.” The fact that such an extended discussion of the Davidic line should precede Evyatar’s narration of David ben Daniel’s exploits demonstrates once again just how thoroughly political disputes could be conceptualized as rivalries between biblical dynasties. Evyatar’s incorporation of a pedigree of his own in the “Scroll” surely represents another attempt to compete with David’s royal lineage. A central theme in the polemic is the exclusive right of the Palestinian geʾonim to determine the calendar. Evyatar discusses this unique prerogative at some length as a way of delegitimizing the authority of David ben Daniel and his father, who, as Babylonian outsiders, were not qualified to exercise it. Significantly, Evyatar presents the knowledge requisite for properly fixing the calendar as a secret passed down to his family from generation to generation going back to Adam.44 Evyatar’s attempt to cast his family’s struggles with the family



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of Daniel ben ʿAzarya as a conflict between competing lineages is echoed once more at the very end of the text, in the instructions given to its recipient, the judge Parḥon ha-Kohen ben Judah of Sijilmāsa. Evyatar writes: “It is our command and that of Heaven that [the ‘Scroll’] be distributed to every person of wisdom and understanding in order to memorialize and to publicize the miracle that the Holy One wrought for the priests, the sons of Aaron.” Evyatar’s review of the Davidic monarchy in this text is, in many regards, a counter-history of the royal dynasty, a deliberate distortion of the succession of noble ancestors invoked by nesiʾim and their supporters as a sign of their ancestral distinction and their entitlement to authority.45 In introducing Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel through a recitation of the disgraces of the Davidic kings, Evyatar effectively turns the biblical pedigree of the nesiʾim on its head: rather than a direct link to nobility and status, it has become the mark of shameful origins. Such an attempt to recast an opponent’s allegedly illustrious genealogy as blemished recalls the accusation that Saʿadya Gaʾon was descended from nonJews, the deliberate misrepresentation of the priestly lineage of the “rebellious kohanim,” and the portrayal of Bustanay as the source of an irremediable taint in the royal pedigree. It also underscores once more how deeply Jews had internalized the nasab-oriented discourse of the surrounding society. For if demonstrating noble ancestry was critical for achieving honor in the Arab-Islamic world, showcasing the shameful points in a lineage was a correspondingly effective way of undermining it. In classical Arabic literature genealogical assaults of this sort are most commonly associated with mathālib (“vices,” “defects”) works, a genre of prose literature that grew up alongside genealogy and that was designed to discredit tribal lineages.46 The insults leveled against Saʿadya’s ancestors, the letter to the “rebellious kohanim,” the Bustanay story and “Scroll of Evyatar” can, I would argue, be read as instances of such writing. Like typical mathālib works, each sets out to disgrace a political rival through the infamy of his forebears. Among other things, such sources suggest that Jews had not only adapted themselves and their political discourse to constructive implementations of genealogy, they had become familiar with its more damaging usages as well.

The Letters of Samuel ben ʿEli At some point after the death in 1175 of the exilarch Daniel ben Ḥisday, a conflict erupted between the new appointee to that post—we have no record of his



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name—and Samuel ben ʿEli, the long-standing gaʾon of the Baghdad yeshiva.47 The main source of information for this conflict is a sizeable collection of the gaʾon’s correspondence that was discovered in the Geniza.48 In a letter sent to Jewish communities in northern Iraq and Syria in the spring of 1191, Samuel argues that the exilarchate should be abolished altogether. Taking as his point of departure the common view that exilarchs stand in place of the ancient kings of Israel, Samuel insists that the monarchy itself was merely a divine concession to the military exigencies of the people at a particular moment in history. Rather than an eternal and divinely ordained institution, the Davidic monarchy is here cast as both contingent and born of base human needs. When Israel asked for a king in the time of Samuel, you are aware of how angry [God] became, saying: “They have not rejected you, rather they have rejected Me from ruling over them” [1 Samuel 8:7]. And they chose a king only on account of the need for someone to lead them in battle. . . . But in the time of exile [they] have no king and no wars, nor do they have any of the concerns that require a king. Rather, they have need only for one who can guide them, impart to them their religious obligations, judge their cases and decide for them matters of religious law.49 Citing King David’s deference to his teacher Mephiboshet, the gaʾon further insists that royal power must always subordinate itself to the spiritual authority of the rabbis. He argues that this proper hierarchical relationship between the exilarchate and rabbinic authority was in fact reestablished during the period of Muslim rule: In the days of the exilarch David ben Judah [the exilarchs] were removed from the service of the king and returned to the rabbis and the yeshivot. But [the latter] did not accept them until they had imposed upon them the conditions of the yeshiva which were authorized by the signatures of the exilarchs and by witnesses.50 Over against the monarchy and its exilarchal successor, Samuel thus posits the superiority of an alternative institution of leadership, namely the yeshiva. He refers to it as the “place of Moses” and writes that “whoever opposes it . . . opposes Moses.” And invoking the famous opening of tractate Avot, Samuel emphasizes that the yeshiva is the direct heir of a transmission of spiritual authority that can be traced back to Moses. Samuel further stresses the link between the



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yeshiva and Moses by citing a rabbinic statement according to which “the court in each generation is to be considered like the court of Moses himself.” Samuel’s insistence on linking his institution to the figure of Moses is somewhat unusual and suggests that his arguments on behalf of the yeshiva were influenced to some degree by the genealogical discourse we have been examining. Like his rival, Samuel may have found it expedient to present himself as the successor to a legacy that could be traced directly back to a biblical ancestor. That Samuel may indeed have been concerned with the way contemporary authority structures were anchored by such genealogical claims is further suggested by Benjamin of Tudela’s report, noted earlier, that Samuel was a direct descendant of Moses.51 Samuel himself never makes such a claim, but reading his letter of 1191 it is easy to understand how some might have gotten that impression. He essentially claims that in his capacity as gaʾon he is Moses’ direct spiritual heir. But genealogical arguments in support of the yeshiva’s preeminence become much more explicit in another of Samuel’s letters, this one addressed to the Jewish community of Irbil in the fall of 1193. Conflict with a rival Jewish leader is again what has prompted communication. Samuel refers to a political opponent who has apparently succeeded in challenging his jurisdiction over the town’s Jewish community, reproaching his readers for having thus betrayed him and his institution. Samuel reminds the community of its historic obligation to the yeshiva, which cannot be superseded by newer obligations: “A recent pact or oath cannot cancel earlier ones,” he writes. The community’s failure to support the yeshiva financially seems to have been one of his major concerns. Once again Samuel expatiates on the importance of the yeshiva, which, he insists, “has been authorized by a covenant of justice.” But in this case Samuel also propounds a genealogical argument in which the yeshiva’s preeminence is understood in relation to the special status of the tribe of Levi, which, he maintains, was chosen by God above all other lineages. Like those arguing on behalf of the privileged status of the royal and priestly families, Samuel insists that the unique role assigned to Levi is similarly demonstrated by a covenant with God. Levi’s superiority over other tribes is reflected, moreover, in its unique charge to worship God and to glorify His name. And its responsibility for instructing Israel in the Law, he maintains, is yet another sign of its special status. Accordingly, Samuel concludes that “it is appropriate that [Israel] should follow [the tribe of Levi] in matters of law and religious obligations, for God chose it for that purpose from among the rest of mankind, and according to the Torah everyone is obligated to [obey] it.” 52



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It becomes clear that these arguments are to be understood in light of Samuel’s own claim of descent from that tribe, for he reminds his readers that their duty to obey Levi is all the more binding given the oath they made with him some thirty years earlier, when he first assumed the gaonate. Samuel concludes by urging his addressees to live up to their eternal obligations to his tribe. Samuel thus defends the supreme status of the yeshiva and the authority of the gaonate against the claims of other competing institutions of authority by means of an argument on behalf of the unique status of levitical descent. The yeshiva is, in his argument, thus equated with other dynastic forms of authority. The unnamed competitor in Samuel’s letter to the Jews of Irbil, it seems reasonable to conclude, was the same exilarch against whom he railed in his earlier letter of 1191. The sense of outrage at the incursions of a recent and unqualified competitor and the insistence on the primacy of the yeshiva and the tribe of Levi over other institutions and genealogies are of a piece with the arguments laid out in the earlier missive. Irbil, moreover, is located in the same geographic region to which the earlier letter had been sent, a region close to Mosul, which was the seat of the exilarchate in the late twelfth century.53 It seems likely, then, that both letters reflect Samuel’s efforts to deflect the exilarch’s encroachments on territories which had previously been loyal to him and his yeshiva. Samuel’s efforts to substantiate the preeminence of gaonic authority through an appeal to the special prerogatives associated with levitical descent would seem to have been occasioned, in part, by the particular adversary with whom he was competing. Hovering behind his arguments on behalf of the special status of the tribe of Levi, one can hear the very language and reasoning used to support the claims of the Davidic line. Samuel’s insistence on God’s special and eternal covenant with Levi, for example, and his assertion that whoever “opposes the yeshiva . . . opposes Moses” recall the justifications of Davidic privilege that we noted earlier. Such an observation raises the distinct possibility that Samuel’s appeal to genealogy was tailored in response to the exilarch’s own self-legitimizing arguments, a reaction in kind to the rhetoric of ancestral entitlement advanced by the royal line. The texts examined in this chapter reveal the political uses to which a royal genealogy could be put. Competition for communal authority was a critical arena in which respect for the noble lineage of members of the House of David was mobilized. At the same time, these sources also relate to our broader argument that the new importance of Davidic lineage was both a reaction to and an internalization of attitudes within Arab-Islamic society concerning the meaningfulness of sacred lineage. The existence of a political discourse so dominated



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by concerns with ancestry reinforces our central contention that during this period Near Eastern Jewish society was characterized by a renewed interest in genealogical claims that was in part shaped by attitudes shared with the surrounding Arab-Islamic society. The political significance that came to be attached to royal lineage in the Middle Ages is a critical component of what I have described as the Jewish embrace of nasab. It suggests that, like their Muslim neighbors, Jews had come to regard genealogy as a crucial means of legitimizing religious and political authority. Finally, it is also worth noting that the episodes considered in this chapter suggest that there was a connection between the intensity of one’s political aspirations and the importance of one’s genealogy. I have repeatedly stressed that the tendency of earlier historians to view nesiʾim largely as political opportunists has minimized the relevance of the wider cultural context, a context in which their ancestry had come to possess unique social significance. Yet as the texts considered in this chapter demonstrate, political competition did influence the assertion of lineage. These sources underscore the extent to which an individual’s identification with an ennobling ancestor was, in the end, selective and occasional, emerging most clearly at moments of competition or conflict. Having explored the implications of lineage for the medieval present, we now turn to a consideration of its significance for conceptions of the apocalyptic future.

Chapter 4

“Designated in the Past and for the Future”: Davidic Dynasts and Medieval Messianic Anticipation

In September 1038, in the midst of the Jewish high holiday season, Nathan ben Abraham, the scion of a prominent Palestinian family, was proclaimed gaʾon of the Palestinian yeshiva. Nathan’s appointment to that post was a direct challenge to Solomon ben Judah, who had occupied the gaonate for over a decade. Setting himself up in the town of Ramla, Nathan acted over the next four years every part the incumbent ruler, appointing deputies, issuing legal responsa, and even brazenly signing his letters “Nathan, head of the academy of the pride of Jacob.”1 The displaced Solomon first tried to quell the insurrection by issuing a ban against Nathan and his supporters, a move that proved to be largely futile. And when an attempt to enlist the assistance of the Fatimid authorities resulted in little more than the forced closing of a synagogue in Ramla associated with Nathan, Solomon and his camp seem to have resigned themselves to a tacit accommodation with the upstart. The unauthorized reopening of that synagogue some time later, though, appears to have provided the opportunity for making a second appeal to the caliph, who was now inclined to take more decisive action. According to the terms of the settlement that the two sides finally reached in October 1042, Solomon was reinstated as gaʾon and Nathan was demoted to the rank of av (“head of the court”), a position immediately subordinate to that of gaʾon in the rigid hierarchy of offices within the Palestinian yeshiva. At the same time, Nathan was given a spot alongside Solomon on a new, five-person committee that was charged with supervising the affairs of the yeshiva.2 As Mark Cohen has shown, the clash between Solomon ben Judah and Nathan ben Abraham was more than just a personal dispute between two



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contenders for the office of gaʾon; it was a conflict that for several years embroiled much of Near Eastern Jewish society, arousing sympathies and inflaming passions in towns across the Mediterranean basin. The truly international proportions of the incident are amply illustrated by the pleas that both sides made to the leader of Qayrawān’s Jewish community, the nagid Jacob ben Amram, seeking his personal support and hoping to benefit from his influence with both the Jewish population and the Muslim authorities. Initially the nagid sided with Nathan, even going so far as to urge a Muslim dignitary in Cairo named Abū al-Qāsim Ibn al-Ukhuwwa to help secure for Nathan the backing of the Fatimid government. But after receiving letters from the opposing camp, including several from Solomon himself, Jacob seems to have reversed his position. A letter drafted by members of Solomon’s faction, probably dating from the spring of 1039, requests that the nagid, having agreed to endorse their candidate, now “carry through with the government,” presumably hoping that he would intercede on Solomon’s behalf with the Muslim authorities as he had previously agreed to do for Nathan.3 Though written in the midst of the “contention and rivalry” of the conflict, the letter to the nagid actually opens with a seemingly unrelated bit of encouraging news—a report of the recent arrival in Palestine of the Iraqi-born nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya. After the customary introductory niceties the letter states: Truly we bring glad tidings to our nagid . . . that out of God’s great goodness and compassion upon us in these times, He has brought us a son of David our king . . . our lord Daniel, nasi of our diasporas, son of . . . ʿAzarya, nasi of our people, grandson of our lord Solomon our exilarch—may our mighty one keep him and our fortress protect him. He has raised up the banner of our teachers, interprets what we have forgotten . . . [and] argues against our unintentional sinner, thereby fulfilling in himself the verse: “And to them who reprove shall be delight, etc. [Proverbs 24:25].” He dislodges our intentional sinner from our territory and closes our breaches. Many reforms he did make and many from sin did turn back like the expiator. He removed the slave girls from the houses, and between pure and impure made a partition wall. Of musical instruments and those who listen to them he disapproved. The soul rejoices in him, and his fame travels inside and outside . . . for fear [of God] and humility in him are gathered and his fountains shall spread abroad, thereby fulfilling in himself the verse “And they that are



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wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, etc. [Daniel 12:3].” May the likes of him multiply in Israel, and may the Redeemer come and Ariel be renewed, as was prophesied by Ezekiel, the son of Buzi.4 Daniel’s arrival is depicted in unabashedly eschatological terms. He is the “son of David”—a common epithet for the messiah in rabbinic texts— whose appearance is construed as a sign of divine compassion in a time of strife. His social reforms, described in language drawn from the visions of the biblical prophets, are seen as portents of the time of salvation. And the references to the coming of the Redeemer, the restoration of Ariel—either the city of Jerusalem or the Temple altar—and the prophecy of Ezekiel further underscore such an impression. At first blush the news seems to have nothing to do with the main subject of the communication, but upon closer examination the letter writer’s enthusiasm for Daniel is surely to be understood in relation to the controversy that was then consuming the Jewish community. Daniel, a close ally of Solomon ben Judah who would eventually succeed him as head of the Palestinian yeshiva, offers a striking contrast to the divisive Nathan, whose illegitimate power grab is the main subject of the missive. Nathan is described as behaving slanderously toward the deposed gaʾon, oppressing elders and dignitaries, usurping authority to which he had no proper claim, and generally sowing dissension and injustice in the Jewish community. Daniel’s praiseworthy attributes thus serve to accentuate the extent of the corruption of Nathan’s regime. And when, at the letter’s close, we find the writer urging the nagid to “close the breach,” repeating a phrase that he earlier used in praise of Daniel, it seems reasonable to wonder if through the nasi’s example he was also trying to motivate his recipient to take action. Though arresting, the deployment of eschatological imagery is not altogether unprecedented in medieval panegyrics, especially in those written for communal leaders and elites. A letter by Amram ben Joseph, expressing gratitude to the eleventh-century Egyptian Jewish leader Mevorakh ben Saʿadya for helping to resolve a matter concerning payment for a large shipment of camphor that was two years in arrears, includes the following encomium: “May [God] preserve him [Mevorakh] for us and for all Israel since he is the savior [moshiʿa] whom God has raised up in accordance with His promise to never abandon them.”5 And in a letter addressed to the twelfth-century Egyptian nagid Samuel ben Ḥananya, the Andalusian poet Judah Halevi uses similarly charged language, referring to his addressee at one point as “the Lord’s annointed” and later on as “the chosen of the Lord and His beloved.”6



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Even more profoundly messianic is a partially preserved eulogy by an otherwise unknown poet named Samuel written in honor of David ben Abraham (d. 1300), the grandson of Maimonides and the nagid of Egypt in the second half of the thirteenth century. The last stanza nicely illustrates the poem’s unrestrained euphoria over David: He is the messiah of his day, grazing his people in good pasture God has sent him . . . to cause them to lie down . . .  “Wondrous [pele]”7 He has called him . . . He is indeed our anointed [meshiḥenu]; the prince of God [nesi Elohim] in our midst is he.8 But if the messianic description of Daniel ben ʿAzarya should be understood in light of both literary convention and the controversy over the ­gaonate that occasioned the letter to the Tunisian nagid, it is not hard to imagine that it was also suggested to some degree by Daniel’s well-recognized and explicitly noted claim to Davidic ancestry. Daniel’s contemporaries were in fact quite aware of his ancestry and, as we have seen, refer to him as al-dāʾūdī.9 If messianic imagery could be applied to Jewish dignitaries generally, surely it was all the more appropriate and meaningful when used to describe an individual who was held to be a literal son of David and, by implication, a real candidate for the role of the future redeemer. Such imagery may have been used for Davidic and non-Davidic figures alike, but in the case of the former it assumed a special significance inasmuch as it intersected with and reinforced a set of preexisting ideas about the meaningfulness of royal lineage. In this chapter we explore messianism as another backdrop to Near Eastern Jewish society’s profound interest in the descendants of King David. My argument is not that the two phenomena should be seen as causally linked, but rather as acting upon one another symbiotically. Just as medieval messianic fervor provided one of several overlapping contexts from which the importance of Davidic ancestry could draw sustenance and in which it might become concretized, so too the prevalence of Davidic dynasts in the medieval Near East offered rich soil for the flowering of messianic sentiments and actions. Interpenetrating one another, each was in turn affected by the other as well. While it may seem to go without saying that Jewish concern with Davidic ancestry was related in fundamental ways to the widespread belief in a messiah descended from King David, historians have tended to treat the two issues as essentially distinct. Jacob Mann, one of the pioneers of Geniza research, devoted



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scholarly attention to both subjects. He authored several studies on medieval messianism, including an important two-part article that identified and analyzed eight messianic movements that erupted during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.10 And in the very same years Mann was also meticulously compiling data on the proliferation of claims to royal lineage in the Geniza society. Despite these simultaneous efforts, however, he never seriously entertained the possibility that the two phenomena he was studying were linked. A similar pattern is evident in the work of S. D. Goitein. In an article that was later incorporated into the fifth volume of Mediterranean Society, Goitein documented indications of what he regarded as a form of popular messianism that pervaded the daily life of members of the Geniza society. Among other things, Goitein pointed to the recurrence of messianic prayers and blessings in correspondence—even in letters of an entirely mundane nature—and the frequency with which individuals bore personal names with overtly messianic meanings, such as Ṣemaḥ (“shoot,” an allusion to Zechariah 6:12), Mevasser (“harbinger,” referring to Isaiah 52:7), and, even more explicitly, Yeshuʿa (“salvation”).11 On the basis of these and other expressions Goitein concluded that for the Jews in the Near East “the belief in the sudden and miraculous appearance of the Messiah was a fact of life.”12 But neither in the original article nor in its revised form in Mediterranean Society did Goitein consider the popularity of Davidic figures in the Near East as having any relevance to the subject—a fact that is surprising given both his manifest awareness of the nesiʾim and their ubiquity, as well as the kinds of evidence that he was prepared to draw upon in order to document a popular longing for redemption. More recently, the messianic element in Near Eastern Jewish society has been examined by Mordechai Akiva Friedman in a study of the background against which Maimonides wrote his “Letter to Yemen.” Friedman concurs with Goitein’s general assessment of the climate, marshaling new evidence to underscore the extent of messianic feeling. “The Jews of the Geniza,” he writes, “expressed their messianic expectations and yearnings in a number of ways, including their prayers and their letters.”13 But in Friedman’s account, too, nesiʾim make no appearance. Thus, while scholars have mined the available written record for expressions of messianic feeling, little thought has been given to the role that the living members of King David’s family might have played in shaping that posture.14 Is it not likely, however, that these widespread feelings would have been nourished by an awareness of the many nesiʾim who were then circulating throughout the Near East? Or, alternatively, that the popularity of such individuals was in some way influenced by an awareness of their messianic potential?15



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By exploring the nexus between medieval Jews’ oft-noted messianic anticipation and their concern with members of the Davidic line, it is hoped that our understanding of both phenomena will ultimately be deepened. For its part medieval messianism begins to look less like an aberrant cultural phenomenon when we recognize that it flourished in an environment that was flush with living individuals, who, it was believed, satisfied the basic genealogical criterion for messiah-ship. At the same time, attentiveness to the messianic meaning embodied by members of the Davidic line can enable us to better grasp the significance of their widespread appearance and popularity in Near Eastern Jewish society. If, in light of prevailing notions, Davidic lineage had come to signify membership in a family that was distinguished by its descent from noble ancestors and by the ability to trace itself back to the origins of humanity, it also held the promise of an as yet unrealized future distinction in the person of the messiah. For, according to a view that was generally accepted in the Middle Ages, the Jewish messiah was to come from the line of King David. Messianism thus constituted a forward-looking complement to the historically oriented valuation of Davidic descent as a claim of nasab: noble ancestry and messianic potential, past glory and future promise, merged for medieval Jews in the person of the nasi. A poem written for an eleventh-century nasi succinctly captures the way these different temporal realms were reconciled in the living members of the royal line when it describes its subject as having been “designated in the past and for the future too as the prince of God’s people [ʿutad le-ʿavar ve-gam le-ʿatid nesi ʿam el ].”16 That medieval Jews took genealogical claims seriously when evaluating a potential messiah’s credentials is revealed by Obadiah the Proselyte’s reaction to a messianic pretender in Syria. According to his autobiographical “Scroll,” Obadiah, an Italian-born Catholic priest who embraced Judaism in 1102, met the Karaite Solomon ha-Kohen in the year 1121 while visiting Banias.17 Solomon informed Obadiah that God would “gather His people Israel from all the lands into Jerusalem, the holy city” in two and a half months. When Obadiah asked him how he knew this, Solomon replied: “Because I am the one Israel is waiting for,” suggesting that he himself was the messiah. Obadiah was dubious, and in his narrative he recounts his skeptical response: “I understand that you are from the seed of Aaron the priest, and it is now nineteen years since I have come into the covenant of the God of Israel and never have I heard that Israel seeks salvation by the hands of a priest or a Levite, but rather by the hand of Elijah the prophet and the king messiah who is from the



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seed of King David.”18 This incident illuminates yet another context in which biblical lineages assumed profound significance for medieval Jews, for messianism involved not only the anticipation of a future redemption, but also a keen attentiveness to the genealogical qualifications of the redeemer. The extent to which particular genealogical traditions could induce intense messianic yearnings emerges as well from Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen.” In his effort to dismiss a Jewish messianic claimant who emerged in Yemen in the 1170s, Maimonides discusses the attributes of the authentic messiah, emphasizing in particular his transcendent wisdom and his ability to inspire fear and perform miracles. But if the attributes of the future messiah can be learned from the words of the prophets, almost nothing, Maimonides insists, can be known ahead of time about his origins and identity: “Before his appearance the messiah will not be known in any respect . . . such that it might be said of him that he is the son of so and so, from such and such a family. Rather, a person will arise who, before his coming, was unknown, and the signs and the miracles performed by him will prove the legitimacy of his claim and the legitimacy of his genealogy [siḥḥat daʿwatihi wa-siḥḥat nasabihi].”19 Maimonides’ contention is not directed against belief in the Davidic descent of the messiah—something he explicitly affirms earlier in the letter as “one of the fundamental articles of the Jewish faith”—but rather, it seems, against those who were drawn to speculation about the identity of the messiah on the basis of well-known genealogical claims.20 Censured in this passage are those whose consideration of the pedigrees of certain members of the Jewish community had led them to make predictions about the time and the circumstances of the messiah’s arrival. In arguing thus, Maimonides undercuts the reliability of independent genealogical traditions and maintains that the only genuine testimony to the messiah’s lineage is his successful fulfillment of the messianic mission. Thus while upholding the normative belief in the Davidic ancestry of the future redeemer, Maimonides deflects attempts to pin messianic yearnings on particular members of contemporary Jewish society, even (or especially) those whose pedigree would seem to make them likely contenders for messiah-ship.

Messianic Anticipation Near Eastern Jews’ veneration of the Davidic line unfolded within an environment that was saturated with expressions of messianic anticipation, expressions that took a variety of forms and orientations.21 While scholars have



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proposed a number of ways of distinguishing between types of medieval messianic speculation—between utopian and restorative systems, between apocalyptic and naturalistic conceptions, and between messianic doctrine and messianic activism—in what follows I offer a broad survey that minimizes such distinctions so as to capture more clearly medieval Jewish society’s collective preoccupation with the idea of the messiah. By considering the many different ways medieval Jews experienced and articulated their belief in a messianic redeemer, we will be in a better position to grasp the prominence enjoyed by the House of David during the Middle Ages. We have already noted the evidence of messianic yearning that Goitein found in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Jews. A fairly typical example of the kind of “popular messianism” that Goitein identified in the Geniza materials is found in a letter of 1130 addressed to the international merchant Ḥalfon ben Nethanel.22 Referring to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the ingathering of the Jewish people that are to accompany the advent of the messiah, the writer, a Yemenite merchant, concludes a long encomium to his addressee with a prayer that “God grant me the privilege to meet you in the courtyards of the Temple in Jerusalem—so may it be His will.”23 Such wishes are often tailored to the specific content of the correspondence. Thus, a letter dated by Goitein to the beginning of the thirteenth century and written shortly before the holiday of Shavuot contains the following blessing, which alludes both to the future redemption as well as to the revelation at Mount Sinai celebrated during the upcoming festival: “May you be granted to see the messiah, son of David, and to behold the presence of God face to face.”24 And in a letter sent by the Rabbanite congregation of Ramla to the Rabbanites of Fustat describing the activities of an unnamed nasi—probably Daniel ben ʿAzarya—we find the following wish: “Accept peace from us, who seek your peace and your well-being, who pray on our behalf and on yours that [God] should bestow His blessings upon you . . . gather our exiles . . . build our Temple, and bring forth His messiah, in our days and in yours.”25 It is worth noting that the reference here to messianism in connection with Daniel ben ʿAzarya (if he is indeed the subject of the letter) seems to serve the very opposite purpose it served in the missive with which we began this chapter. The writers of the present letter were no friends of Daniel and go on in the next lines to express their annoyance with the excessively fawning manner with which Solomon ben Judah and his son Abraham had been treating him. They complain that the two greeted Daniel with the kind of honor and respect appropriate only for “the righteous members of the House of David [bet David



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al-ṣāliḥīn],” clearly insinuating that Daniel is not to be counted among them. Their prayers that God should send the (true) redeemer thus seem to be an implicit rejoinder to those enthusiasts who, like the writers of the first letter, were inclined to view Daniel as the realization of latent messianic yearnings. Not surprisingly, moments of distress could produce particularly acute outpourings of messianic longing. An ornately written letter informing its readers of the suffering of the Jewish communities in Palestine—perhaps in conjunction with the arrival of the crusaders in 1099—turns positively ecstatic after recounting the recent trauma. But now, for a brief moment, favor has come from the Lord, who has left us a remnant in the land and kept alive for us many survivors. Truly it is so, for in these very days God has caused the horn of the exile to be raised and the kingdom renewed; and he has let it be heard from every corner of the earth: “Behold, a king rules from the House of David our king, whose name is ‘Branch.’ And he shall sit upon his throne and rule on account of the steadfastness of the Lord and the steadfast righteousness of David.”26

Theological Treatments But if such stirrings are evident in the correspondence of ordinary Jews, “messianism,” as Joel Kraemer correctly observes, “was not the preserve of the passionate masses alone.”27 Indeed, a wide range of scholarly works from the Middle Ages attest to the fact that Jewish intellectual elites were themselves no less profoundly engaged with the theme of salvation and the figure of the messiah than the average Jew was. Saʿadya Gaʾon, for example, deals with the subjects of redemption and resurrection at considerable length in his Kitāb al-mukhtār fī al-imānāt waʾl-iʿtiqādāt (Book of Beliefs and Opinions). Almost a third of that work, in fact, is devoted to topics directly connected with the events of the messianic age. And given his philosophical bent, Saʿadya’s conception is surprisingly supernatural, making use of rationalist argumentation to endorse an essentially literal reading of apocalyptic visions of the messianic age.28 One of the key texts informing Saʿadya’s description of the messianic age is Sefer Zerubavel, a seventh-century apocalypse that vividly depicts the eschatological course of events leading up to the arrival of the Davidic messiah and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. And in at least



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three of his works Saʿadya endorses the practice of calculating the time of redemption, even indulging in such computations himself. A responsum attributed to Hayya Gaʾon that contains a detailed eschatological forecast similarly based on the scheme in Sefer Zerubavel offers further evidence of a well-­ established apocalyptic conception of the messianic age among geonic authorities.29 A note of messianic anticipation has also been detected among Saʿadya’s Karaite adversaries, in particular those who were active in Palestine during the tenth and eleventh centuries. These “Mourners for Zion,” as they called themselves, maintained that through their regimen of scriptural study, prayer, and nighttime vigils they actively participated in a process that would eventuate in the advent of the messiah.30 Reflecting the fervor of this circle as well as its prognostic approach to biblical prophecies, the tenth-century Karaite scholar Sahl ben Maṣliaḥ writes in a letter addressed to Jacob ben Samuel: “Behold the days of reckoning for the gentile nations and the time of salvation for Israel are near. God will bring this time nearer to us and will redeem us from the clutches of the ‘two women,’ and He will appoint as king over us the messiah, the descendant of King David, as it is written: ‘Behold, thy king comes unto thee’ ” (Zechariah 9:9).31 Messianic motifs reverberated at the other end of the Mediterranean as well in the compositions of some of the greatest poets of al-Andalus. A dominant theme in the religious poetry of Judah Halevi has recently been described as a posture of pious passivity that is evocative of the Sufi mystical ideal of tawakkul, or absolute reliance on God.32 Yet a sense of the messianic age’s imminence also seems to have shaped his spiritual outlook and to have lent greater urgency to the decision to abandon his native Spain and live out the end of his days in Palestine.33 Though wary of viewing Halevi’s pilgrimage to the land of Israel as an expression of acute messianic anticipation as some have, Raymond Scheindlin nonetheless acknowledges that much of the messianic imagery in Halevi’s poetry “is sufficiently vivid to suggest that at some point in the course of his career, he was convinced by the calculations that placed the messianic redemption in his own lifetime.”34 In a poem reflective of such feelings, Halevi even describes a dream in which it is revealed to him that the cosmic process of redemption—culminating with the overthrow of the dominion of “Ishmael”—would commence in the year 1130.35 And in another composition Halevi seems to refer to disappointment resulting from unfulfilled expectations that the messiah would arrive around 1068, a year that marked a millennium since the traditional date of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.36



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Messianic themes become even more pronounced in the Islamic East in literature written after the second half of the twelfth century, when, as Friedman has shown, a fascination with the advent of the messiah seems to have taken particular hold of Jews in Yemen.37 Such concerns are reflected in the Ismāʿīlī-influenced Bustān al-ʿuqūl, introduced in the preface.38 Responding to religious doubts that were undermining the faith of Yemen’s Jews in the middle of the twelfth century, Nethanel dedicated the sixth chapter of his treatise to a discussion of “the virtues [faḍāʾil] of the messiah,” emphasizing among other things the redeemer’s importance and his superiority over the prophets who preceded him. Following Saʿadya Gaʾon, Nethanel insists that God unconditionally promised the Jewish people “the appearance of this noble individual [hadha al-shakhṣ al-sharīf ]” and that he will accordingly arrive at the appointed hour regardless of whether or not the Jews have repented of their sins. Maimonides’ writings reflect a thoroughgoing concern with messianism as well, albeit a messianism of a distinctly naturalistic sort. In his Mishnah commentary he discusses the significance of “the days of the messiah”—a time, he says, “in which sovereignty will revert to Israel and the Jewish people will return to the land of Israel.” Despite such extraordinary transformations, it is a cardinal principle for Maimonides in this as well as in his other writings that the natural order itself will be maintained during the messianic age: “nothing,” he insists, “will be essentially different from what it is now.” Characterizing the messianic age as a time when, above all else, conditions will be ripe for the attainment of human intellectual and moral perfection, he writes: The prophets and the saints looked forward to the days of the messiah and yearned for them because then the righteous will be gathered together in fellowship, and because goodness and wisdom will prevail. They desired it also because of the righteousness and the abundant justice of the messiah, because of the salutary influence of his unprecedented wisdom, and because of his nearness to God. . . . They also anticipate the performance of all of the commandments of the Torah of Moses our Teacher.39 The importance of the messianic age is particularly evident in Maimonides’ decision to include it in his famous enumeration of the thirteen principles of the Jewish faith: “The twelfth fundamental principle refers to the days of the messiah. We are to believe as fact that the messiah will come. . . . ‘If he delays, wait for him’ [Habakkuk 2:3]; set no time limit for his coming.” Significantly, the same passage concludes with a strong affirmation



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of the role of the Davidic line in the messianic scenario: “The king of Israel must come only from the House of David and the seed of Solomon. Anyone who rejects this family denies God and the words of His prophets.”40 The subject of the messiah is also taken up in the Mishneh Torah—at the end of Hilkhot teshuva (Laws of Repentance) and in greater detail at the end of Hilkhot melakhim u-milḥamotehem (Laws of Kings and Their Wars), which concludes the work as a whole and where, in the context of a discussion of authority structures in a reconstituted Jewish polity, many of the themes first introduced in the Commentary on the Mishnah are reiterated. The role of the messianic age in the Mishneh Torah goes well beyond the few select passages explicitly devoted to it, however. Indeed, as many have noted, the discussion at the end of Hilkhot melakhim provides a fitting conclusion to a legal code whose very scope seems to have been designed in anticipation of “the days of the messiah.” Maimonides’ systematic treatment of all facets of the Jewish legal tradition, even those no longer in force due to political circumstances and the geographical dispersion of the Jewish people, has been seen as looking forward to the messianic age, when “all the ancient laws will be reinstituted . . . sacrifices will again be offered, the sabbatical and jubilee years will again be observed in accordance with the commandments set forth in the law.”41 A strikingly different conceptualization is to be found in his “Letter to Yemen,” where, notes Isadore Twersky, “Maimonides shows much greater enthusiasm and a heightened sense of expectation for the Messianic era than is discernible in the Mishneh Torah.”42 The letter begins with an eschatological interpretation of the Yemenite community’s recent misfortunes: “There can be no doubt,” he writes, “that these are the messianic travails.”43 He goes on to emphasize the rank of the messiah, ascribing to him not only great wisdom but also (and most uncharacteristically for Maimonides) “signs and marvels,” by means of which his legitimacy will be demonstrated. Most unusual of all, however, Maimonides reveals to his readers that he is in possession of an ancient and secret family tradition concerning the year when prophecy will ­resume among the Jews, adding that “it is doubtless true that [its] reappearance . . . is one of the signs betokening the approach of the messianic era.” Based on a numerological interpretation of Numbers 23:23 (“according to this time [ka-ʿet] Jacob will be told . . . what God has planned”), this tradition held that prophecy would be restored in the year 1215. Written in response to the spiritual and physical suffering of Yemen’s Jewish population under the rule of the Mahdids, the letter is palpably addressed to a popular audience: Maimonides urges that it be read publicly and states that he wrote the body of the text in Arabic to ensure that



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women and children would be able to understand its contents. The emphasis on the messiah’s miraculous qualities as well as the sense of his imminence that pervade the text should thus be understood largely as a function of the letter’s intended audience and the extreme pressures that it was then confronting. And yet if the “Letter to Yemen” departs conspicuously from the naturalism of the Commentary on the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah, it can be argued that it is nonetheless consistent in other ways with the overall importance of the messianic age in Maimonides’ system as a whole.44

Liturgical Expressions Messianic anticipation in its various forms evolved from an ancient Jewish belief in a redeemer from the line of David who would gather the Jewish exiles, rebuild the Jerusalem temple, and restore the ancient monarchy of Israel. For Rabbanite Jews especially, this complex of ideas, elaborated in rabbinic works from late antiquity, was regularly reinforced through its incorporation in the daily prayer service. The Talmud itself stipulates the recitation of certain prayers on behalf of the Davidic monarchy, and liturgical texts preserved in the Geniza reflect how such normative regulations were put into practice. Versions of the weekday ʿamida prayer discovered in the Geniza express a yearning for the messianic age through a variety of formulations. According to the rite of the Palestinian congregation in Fustat, the fourteenth benediction of the ʿamida combined a plea for the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem with a call for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy in the messianic age: Have compassion O Lord, our God, in Your abundant mercy, On Israel, Your people, and on Jerusalem, Your city, On Zion, the abode of Your glory, And on the kingdom of the son of David, Your anointed. Blessed are You, O Lord, God of David, rebuilder of Jerusalem.45 Babylonian versions of the ‘amida contained a separate benediction devoted exclusively to the theme of the Davidic savior: Now cause the shoot of David to flourish, And raise his horn high in Your salvation. Blessed are You, O Lord, who causes the horn of salvation to flourish.46



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And a prayer for the reinstatement of the Davidic line was also routinely incorporated into the benedictions following the recitation of the hafṭara, the lection from the Prophets read on Sabbaths and festivals.47 Given these liturgical formulations it would be unwise to discount the emotional effect that prayer in the presence of living members of the House of David could have generated for medieval worshipers. When an anonymous individual describes in a short note of only ten lines the visit of “our lord, the nasi—may his honor be magnified” to the Babylonian synagogue in Fustat, he is likely reflecting some of the thrill that would have naturally accompanied such intersections of textual tradition and social reality.48 A similar call for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy was included in the third benediction of the Grace after Meals. A version of this blessing found in the Geniza reads: “Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon us and upon Your people Israel . . . and upon the kingdom of the House of David, Your anointed one—speedily may You restore it to its place.”49 In an alternate version the messianic motif is even more pronounced: “Have mercy, O Lord our God . . . rescue us speedily from our misfortunes and cause us not to rely on the charity of men, for their charity is meager and their shame is great. Rather, do we trust in Your holy name, which is great and awesome, and may Elijah and the messiah, son of David, come in our lifetime.”50 In other cases, messianic meaning could be read into the language of a more ambiguous liturgical text. Hayya Gaʾon, for instance, explains the qaddish prayer as beseeching God to hasten “the coming of the messiah” and referring to a time when “all the nations of the world will gather to make war with Israel, and Israel will flee to Jerusalem . . . and the Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal Himself to them.”51 Karaites, whose prayers consisted primarily of scriptural passages, also reinforced messianic expectations through their liturgical readings. A text emanating from the Karaite community of Jerusalem during the early eleventh century, for example, urges it readers to recite Psalm 90—understood to be a description of the messianic age—as a way of speeding the redemptive process.52 Besides occupying an important place in the basic liturgy, messianic anticipation also found expression in compositions that were written to enhance the prayer service on specific occasions, especially dates commemorating communal tragedy. A striking illustration is a poetic embellishment of the “rebuilder of Jerusalem” benediction of the ‘amida for the ninth of Ab, a day on which the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem is commemorated by Rabbanites. The poem, which begins “On that day when messiah, son of David, will come to an oppressed people,” recounts the unfolding of events at the time of the



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redemption, once again drawing on Sefer Zerubavel.53 The drama described in the text culminates as the messiah reveals himself to the Jewish people: And he will further say to all of Israel, “I am the messiah, son of David, son of Judah, son of Israel, I am the one whom God has appointed. I have borne Israel’s afflictions, and I am called ‘Redeemer.’ Let Israel rejoice, Jacob be glad, and may all the nations be as naught.” According to Yosef Yahalom this poem was written in the seventh century, shortly after and in response to the Muslim conquest of Palestine. Judging from the numerous versions of the text that have been discovered in the Geniza, it was still quite popular several centuries later, providing eleventh-, twelfth-, and thirteenth-century worshipers with an unusually concrete vision of the messiah and the process of redemption as they reflected on the Temple’s destruction. Through the recitation of texts such as those we have been considering, the messianic era’s significance was thus regularly communicated to individuals at every level of medieval Jewish society. One can easily imagine how such an abundant and ready store of apocalyptic imagery could become activated during moments of intense messianic speculation, especially when living members of the Davidic line were involved.

Predicting the Advent of the Messiah Efforts to calculate the precise year when the redemption would commence offer further evidence of the messianic stirrings that were affecting medieval Jewish society. We have already noted two influential scholars—Saʿadya Gaʾon and Judah Halevi—who indulged openly in such speculation. Maimonides was strongly opposed to it; though, as we have seen, this did not keep him from predicting the year when prophecy would be restored to the Jewish people. As Yefet ben ‘Eli’s harsh critique of the practice in his commentary on Daniel makes clear, some Karaites attempted to calculate the advent of the messianic age as well.54 Indeed, the eleventh-century Karaite text mentioned above recommending the recitation of Psalm 90 contains a prediction that the messiah will appear in the year 1015.55



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The prevalence of such concerns in medieval Jewish society is reflected as well in a contemporary literary text. The twenty-second chapter of Judah alḤarizi’s Taḥkemoni describes a scene in which a group of Jewish youths decide to play a trick on a Muslim astrologer whom they take to be a charlatan. Putting his powers to the test, the boys—who are at this point indistinguishable from the other Muslim onlookers—challenge the astrologer to guess the topic of a question they have agreed upon among themselves, a question “concerning the redemption, and when salvation will come to the children of exile, and whether this downtrodden people will be uplifted.”56 Their question, in other words, concerns the time of the messiah’s arrival. The astrologer, who succeeds at divining the boys’ religious identity as well as their secret, becomes enraged at the seditiousness implied by their curiosity. “As God lives,” he exclaims, “you deserve to die because you have asked for the destruction of the world, because you have delved into the ruin of kings, because you have rebelled against the state!” Nearly stoned to death by the crowd of onlookers, the boys are hurried before the town qāḍī. A reasonable man, he quickly realizes that they are little more than a band of mischievous youths out for a few laughs and has them released the following morning. As several scholars have observed, this narrative, cleverly adapting a recurring motif in maqāma literature in which a deliberately hidden identity is ultimately revealed, underscores the ambivalent space occupied by Jews in medieval Muslim society. And in reflecting on the boundaries that limned Jewish acculturation, the text tellingly pivots on the potentially perilous consequences of the boys’ barely suppressed messianic fantasies.57 That the youths in al-Ḥarizi’s narrative should have consulted an astrologer aptly reflects, moreover, one of the most important means by which medieval Jews in fact hoped to discover the date of the messiah’s arrival. Abraham bar Ḥiyya, who was among the more enthusiastic devotees of astrological science in the Middle Ages, used the method to forecast in his Megillat ha-megalle the year when the messiah will come. Maimonides refers to another Spanish scholar— “one of our keen minds in the province of al-Andalus”—who similarly “calculated by means of astrology the date of the final redemption, and predicted the coming of the messiah in a particular year.”58 And when Petaḥya of Regensburg met a widely regarded astrologer living in Mosul, he instinctively asked him when the messiah would come. According to the unexpurgated version of the exchange, the astrologer had a ready answer for Petaḥya: “As for what you have asked me concerning the messiah: know that I have seen the time of redemption in the stars several times, though I am not permitted to reveal it. But know well that the time is indeed near.”59



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Messianic Claimants and Their Supporters Surely the most palpable evidence of heightened messianic anticipation, however, is to be found in the numerous messianic heralds and self-styled redeemers who appeared in North Africa and the Near East during the period under consideration.60 The capacity for the generic expressions of longing for redemption described above to develop into more focused forms of activity connected with a charismatic figure is reflected in a variety of sources from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. We have already come across two such figures. In Chapter 2, in exploring the self-conscious construction of identity through naming preferences, we discussed Abraham bar Hillel’s rhymed prose celebration of the downfall of Maimonides’ rival, derisively referred to as “Zuṭa.” As noted, Abraham accused “Zuṭa” of changing his name to Sar Shalom in order to better serve his messianic aspirations. Abraham’s suggestion that an aura of messianic excitement surrounded Zuṭa is confirmed in a contemporary letter concerning tensions within the Jewish community of Alexandria. The author of the letter, a Jewish judge who had himself become embroiled in the controversy over Zuṭa’s authority, reports that the latter “was called [or: called himself ] the messiah” and describes a meeting of local dignitaries at which it was suggested that “those who support him deserve to be burned.”61 And earlier in this chapter we encountered a second messianic pretender—the Karaite Solomon ha-Kohen, whom the proselyte Obadiah met in Syria. Obadiah’s “Scroll” actually provides information about two additional messianic claimants at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century: a certain Ibn Shaddād, who was active in the town of Baʿqūba; and someone named Solomon ibn Rūjī from northern Iraq, who, along with his son Menaḥem and an assistant named Ephraim ben ʿAzarya of Jerusalem, sent letters to the Jews of neighboring areas and was hailed by many as “the king messiah.”62 From Obadiah’s descriptions it is evident that both figures succeeded in gathering adherents. He notes in particular the ridicule to which the followers of the latter were subjected when expectations that they would be miraculously transported to the land of Israel proved to be unfounded.63 Based on Ifḥām al-yahūd (The Silencing of the Jews), a polemical tract by the Jewish convert to Islam Samawʾal al-Maghribī (d. ca. 1174), it would seem that Solomon’s son Menaḥem became a focus of messianic excitement in his own right.64 Samawʾal describes how, with hopes of raising an army and capturing the fortress of the governor of Amadiyya, Menaḥem appealed to Jews living in the region of Azerbaijan, proclaiming himself their redeemer.65 Menaḥem



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succeeded in winning a large following, but once the governor became aware of his movement and the Jews’ intentions he had the pretender killed. Samawʾal adds that despite his manifest defeat there were still some Jews who persisted in their veneration of Menaḥem. The Jews of Amadiyya, he writes, still “prefer him to many of their prophets, and there are among them some who believe that he is the expected messiah [al-masīḥ al-muntaẓar].” Information about messianic activity in the region of Amadiyya during the middle of the eleventh century is also provided in the travel account of Benjamin of Tudela.66 According to reports told to Benjamin, in about the year 1160 the scholar and miracle worker David al-Roʾi announced that he had been sent by God “to capture Jerusalem and free [the Jews] from the yoke of the gentiles.” Regarded by many as the messiah, David planned an armed uprising against the Persian authorities. Though imprisoned, he reportedly eluded his captors by making himself invisible, walking across the surface of a river and then flying through the air. When the leading Jewish authorities in Baghdad were notified of David’s military plans, they too tried to stop him but were equally unsuccessful. According to Benjamin, the threat posed by David’s messianic movement was ultimately defused by his assassination at the hands of his father-in-law. While similarities in the stories of Menaḥem and David have led some to conclude that they are in fact descriptions of one and the same person, there are also good reasons to question the identification of the two.67 But whether we view Solomon, Menaḥem, and David as three distinct messianic figures or take them as evidence of a single messianic movement, the sources relating to them attest to the tremendous willingness of Eastern Jewry to pin messianic ideas and imagery on particular living figures. Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen,” a text that has already been mentioned several times in this chapter, is yet another important source for gauging the extent and influence of Jewish messianism in Muslim lands. Composed in about the year 1172, the “Letter” was written in response to a query from Jacob ben Nethanel al-Fayyūmī, a leader of the Jewish community in Yemen. Jacob’s appeal to Maimonides came at a moment of acute political and religious upheaval for the local Jewish population linked to the turbulent period of Mahdid rule. The Mahdids rose to power in 1159 when ʿAlī ibn Mahdī, a popular and charismatic Muslim preacher with a reputation for piety, and for whose patronymic the dynasty is named, captured the town of Zabīd and overthrew the ruling Najaḥid dynasty following a protracted and unusually brutal military campaign. Regarded by his supporters as the eschatological imām al-mahdī, or divinely guided ruler, ʿAlī also bore the messianic title



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qāʾim (“riser”). ʿAlī died later that same year with his son ʿAbd al-Nabī ultimately emerging as his successor. ʿAbd al-Nabī, who continued his father’s aggressively expansionist policies, also perpetuated his mahdist claims and had himself designated qāʾim as well. Under his rule the Mahdids extended their control over most of Yemen, and from 1165 to 1172 they laid siege to Aden. In 1173, however, they were forced to retreat from the port city, and not long afterward the Mahdid fortress at Zabīd was overrun by an Ayyubid-led army. Having been captured by the invading Egyptian forces, ʿAbd al-Nabī and his brother Aḥmad were executed in 1176.68 While Jacob ben Nethanel’s actual appeal to Maimonides does not survive, it would appear that it was written during the time of ʿAbd al-Nabī’s ascendancy—most likely in the period just before his retreat from Aden.69 Medieval sources attribute to ʿAbd al-Nabī a number of fanatical religious policies that ­appear consistent with the kind of coercive measures detailed by Jacob. He is reported, for example, to have sanctioned executing Muslims for minor infringements such as skipping Friday prayers, missing two or more of his weekday sermons, or opposing his religious beliefs. The persecution that prompted Jacob to write to Maimonides was thus likely connected with the reforms introduced under ʿAbd al-Nabī, though it should be noted that the “Letter to Yemen” is the only source that mentions policies directed against the practice of Judaism. Based on Maimonides’ summary of its contents, Jacob’s appeal identified three specific crises facing the Jews of Yemen: a decree banning the practice of their religion in areas controlled by the rebel leader; a missionizing effort led by a Jewish convert to Islam that was undermining the faith of the community; and a wave of messianic enthusiasm that was focused on a Jew who styled himself the messiah. The “Letter to Yemen” thus encompasses Maimonides’ response to a flourishing messianic movement in Yemen during the 1170s. On one hand the letter offers comfort to the Jews of Yemen by acknowledging their suffering and locating it within a larger theological design. As noted above, Maimonides assures his readers that their misfortune is not without meaning; indeed, he insists, it is a clear sign that the time of redemption is close at hand. Moreover, he informs them that their travails were foretold in the Bible and anticipated by the rabbis of the Talmud. At the same time, however, the letter aims at making its readers understand that the messianic claimant in Yemen cannot possibly be the true messiah, and that the time for redemption, though near, has not yet arrived. Maimonides thus validates—indeed, encourages—his readers’ eschatological understanding of their recent experiences while resisting the translation of that understanding into overt activism or an endorsement for any particular



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messianic figure. In arguing thus he also enumerates what he considers to be the essential characteristics of the genuine messiah—in particular his wisdom and his capacity to strike fear in the hearts of his contemporaries—insisting that since such things cannot be said of the Yemenite pretender he must not be the messiah. To the same end Maimonides also recalls at the conclusion of the “Letter to Yemen” four failed messianic movements, his intention evidently being to strike a cautionary note about the real perils involved in openly pursuing messianic fantasies.70 His account of each of the episodes accordingly ends by noting the harm to which the Jews were subjected when their activities came to the attention of their non-Jewish neighbors. Three of the four movements discussed by Maimonides occurred in Muslim lands, while the fourth took place in Christian France. Of the former, two are particularly relevant inasmuch as Maimonides dates them to the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. According to the longer version of this section of the letter, the first of these movements erupted in Cordoba around the turn of the twelfth century and involved a group of Jews who had become convinced that the time for redemption had come and had identified one of their contemporaries, a Jew named Ibn Arye, as the messiah. The second episode took place in Fez in the second or third decade of the twelfth century and was set in motion when the Andalusian-trained scholar and pietist Moses al-Darʿī predicted the imminent arrival of the messiah to a large gathering of his followers. Not only, then, does the “Letter,” in its analysis of correct and incorrect views about the messiah, offer insight into the way Jews in the Islamic world conceptualized the figure of the redeemer, it also provides important evidence of the way messianic longing in the Middle Ages could turn into overt messianic activity. Between the self-styled messiah in Yemen whose message Maimonides sought to neutralize and the earlier eruptions of messianic activity in Cordoba and Fez that are recounted, the “Letter to Yemen” provides a telling window onto the charged atmosphere in Jewish communities across the Islamic world during the eleventh and twelfth centuries—the very environment in which members of the House of David were circulating.

A Messianic Movement in Early Twelfth-Century Baghdad? A final witness to messianic anticipation in the Islamic East comes from a fragmentary Geniza text that describes the deliverance of Baghdad’s Jews from persecution during the first half of the twelfth century. According to



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the text, the first lines of which are missing, the Jews were subjected for a period of several years to various oppressive measures, including the payment of a heavy impost in the amount of 1,000 dinars, as a result of the machinations of a certain Ibn Abī Shujāʿ. In the midst of this, reports began to spread among the city’s Jews that Elijah the Prophet had appeared to a young woman known for her piety, informing her that the time for redemption was near. When word of this reached the caliph, he was incensed by what he perceived to be the Jews’ hostility toward his dominion and sought to have them killed, a move that was, however, strongly opposed by the chief qāḍī. When it later surfaced that the cause for the Jews’ defiance was the dream of a young woman, the caliph again became enraged, threatening to put the visionary to death and remove his protection from the rest of the community. Once more, however, the Jews were saved when Elijah made a second appearance—this time to the caliph himself. The latter, as a result, experienced a complete change of heart and not only spared the Jews’ lives but released them from future payment of the jizya as well. The text concludes by noting that despite the caliphs’s generosity, the Jews preferred to continue to raise an equivalent sum of money on their own and pay it to government officials “because they believed that the collection of the jizya . . . was a benefit to them and that its cancellation would lead to punishment.”71 Goitein, who first published the text, underscored the centrality of the messianic exuberance described in the narrative and viewed it as further evidence of “an almost universal [m]essianic movement among the Jewish communities of Europe and Asia,” which erupted in the wake of the crusades.72 Moreover, he regarded the text as a “matter-of-fact eye-witness account” of real events (albeit one that freely incorporated supernatural phenomena) and pointed to the fact that it concludes, like much of the correspondence in the Geniza, with the phrase “and peace” (ve-shalom) as evidence that it is a copy of an actual letter sent to the Jews of Fustat probably only a short time after the events it describes. Goitein found further corroboration of the text’s contents— and hence, its historical accuracy—in a notice included in al-Muntaẓam, a history of the caliphate by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1200), according to which an especially large tax assessment (24,000 dinars) was imposed on the Jews in the year 1121.73 Gil, too, has treated the text as a more or less reliable record of historical events, though he has disputed Goitein’s conclusions about the extent and significance of the messianic movement.74 Despite the positivist reading endorsed by both scholars, there are some rather troubling literary aspects to the text that raise questions about whether



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it should indeed be relied upon as a straightforward source of historical information. As narrated, the story incorporates a number of common Jewish folkloric motifs: the near destruction and miraculous salvation of a local community, a scheming government official who is responsible for the Jews’ predicament, a young and pious female heroine, and a wise and sympathetic gentile who recognizes God’s unfailing concern for the Jewish people. It also has affinities to Jewish stories in which the jizya is depicted as a guarantee of Jewish safety and accordingly as something advantageous and even desirable.75 In fact, the moralizing quality of the story seems to emerge from the very first extant line in which the narrative that follows is presented as a tale of “relief after punishment” (al-fakk baʿd al-ʿuqūba). All this suggests that if there is an underlying basis of factual information to the narrative, it has been significantly reshaped by ideological and pedagogic concerns. And yet, if the accuracy of events described in the text—including the eruption of acute messianic anticipation—is subject to doubt, the text’s concern with messianism per se seems quite realistic. Indeed, like al-Ḥarizi’s maqāma about the young boys who confront the Muslim astrologer, it can be read as a cautionary tale about the dangers of potentially treasonous eschatological fantasies. Both in underscoring the wisdom of patient submission to the Islamic state and in problematizing the realization of redemptive hopes, the text speaks in its own way to the intensity of messianic belief among Jews in the Near East.

Jewish Messianism in an Islamic Context While the various expressions of messianic anticipation surveyed above certainly drew on ancient Jewish traditions concerning the process of redemption, they were also influenced by events and ideas emanating from the surrounding society. In this vein, it has been plausibly suggested that the messianic outbursts of the twelfth century among the Jews of the Near East were to some extent triggered by the ferment generated by the crusading movements.76 The letter discussed earlier lamenting the destruction of Jewish communities in Palestine in the context of the crusaders’ conquest of the region demonstrates how Jewish messianic aspirations could indeed be stimulated under such circumstances. Yet Stephen Sharot is probably correct when he concludes that “the connection between the millenarian outbreaks and the crusades was tenuous at best.”77 For other than the vague temporal correlation between them there is little indication



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that the majority of the geographically separated movements discussed above were connected to ideas or political developments associated with the first and second crusades.78 Of potentially greater relevance is the congruence between Jewish messianic beliefs and Islamic traditions about the mahdī, a savior figure usually understood to be a member of the Prophet’s family, who will restore justice and righteousness to the world.79 The mahdī’s role as the anticipated redeemer is reflected in particular by his frequent designation as al-muntaẓar (“the expected one”). The historical development of mahdism, with its utopian vision of a Muslim polity ruled by one of the descendants of Muḥammad, is closely associated with—though by no means limited to—Shīʿī groups who argued for the unique political and spiritual privileges of the ahl al-bayt.80 A central feature of mahdism as it evolved in such circles is the notion that the mahdī would undergo a period of absence or occultation (ghayba) before returning in his capacity as the deliverer. This doctrine developed considerably among the Shīʿī supporters of the ʿAlid imām Mūsā al-Qāẓim after his death at the end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century. Believing Mūsā to be the mahdī, they insisted that he had not in fact died but rather had gone into a period of protracted concealment from which he would eventually emerge. Later, the doctrine of ghayba was also embraced and adapted by those Shīʿīs who supported the mahdī-ship of the ʿAlid imām Muḥammad al-Mahdī, who is believed by his followers to have entered occultation in the year 940. Characteristic of Shīʿī traditions as well is the designation of the redeemer figure as al-qāʾim, an appellation that refers to his anticipated appearance and assumption of political authority. As we noted above, this last title was embraced by rulers in Yemen during whose reign a Jewish messianic figure emerged. The influence that such ideas exerted on Jewish society is evident in the terms and images that Jews began to use when discussing the messiah and his mission. A fragmentary eschatological work in Judeo-Arabic describes the events that will lead up to the messianic age, discussing, among other things, the apocalyptic anti-hero Armilus, the mythic war between Gog and Magog, the so-called messiah son of Joseph, and “al-mahdī, who is the messiah son of David.”81 The messiah is frequently designated al-muntaẓar in Jewish sources as well. The Judeo-Arabic Bustanay story, for instance, concludes with a prayer that God should “send to His people the expected one [al-muntaẓar], who comes from the pure line.”82 In his Kuzari Judah Halevi integrates Islamic and Jewish formulations when he refers to the messiah, “the most noble of men [ashraf alnās],” as “the expected messiah [al-mashiaḥ al-muntaẓar].”83 The phrase is used



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by Abraham Maimonides and Moses Maimonides too.84 And it also appears in a Judeo-Arabic text enumerating and comparing the respective merits of Moses and the messiah. Reflecting the intensity of medieval veneration of the Davidic savior, the text presents Moses as superior to the messiah in ten respects while the messiah is said to exceed Moses in twenty.85 Other, more distinctly Shīʿī formulations influenced the articulation of Jewish messianic beliefs as well. The tenth-century Karaite exegete Salmon ben Yeruḥim, for example, interpreted Psalm 72 as a description of the messianic age. “The awaited leader [al-imām al-muntaẓar],” he goes on to explain, “is the messiah about whom the prophets spoke in many of their prophecies.”86 In describing the messianic age in the introduction to his commentary on tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 10, Maimonides refers to the anticipated Jewish ruler as “the king who rises [al-malik al-qāʾim].”87 And the same formulation appears in his “Letter to Yemen,” too. “It is,” he writes, “one of the fundamental articles of the Jewish faith that a redeemer will arise [la budda min qāʾim yaqūm] from the line of Solomon the son of David.”88 The characterization of the messiah as al-qāʾim also appears in a brief Judeo-Arabic text on the date of Moses’ birth attributed to Moses Ibn Ezra. Combining two appellations for the Islamic mahdī, it refers to the time of “the expected riser [al-qāʾim al-muntaẓar].”89 Rabbinic material, moreover, could be marshaled to support the notion that the messiah would undergo a prolonged period of occultation before returning to restore justice and righteousness to the world.90 A midrashic tradition cited in two eleventh-century Jewish texts maintains that the messiah was born before the destruction of the Second Temple.91 Though the sources do not connect this idea with the doctrine of ghayba explicitly, they evidently do understand the tradition to mean that the messiah has been both alive and absent for an extended period of time. In a somewhat defensive tone, one of the texts even elaborates on the plausibility of the extraordinary longevity of the messiah necessitated by such a position, offering an argument reminiscent of Shīʿī apologetics on behalf of the mahdī-ship of the twelfth imām and the doctrine of his ghayba. To the objections of their Sunnī opponents, Shīʿī writers responded that the twelfth imām’s protracted occultation was entirely within the realm of possibility given the recorded lifespans of various historical figures, including the so-called “long-lived men” (muʿammarūn) of antiquity.92 In much the same fashion, the Judeo-Arabic Bustanay narrative defends the idea of a long-lived messiah by referring to the immortality of various biblical figures according to certain rabbinic traditions: “His [i.e., the



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messiah’s] continued existence throughout the elapsed period is not unrealistic since He, may He be exalted, promised him even more than that, as it says: ‘He asked You for life; You granted him length of days everlasting’ [Psalm 21:5]. Moreover, all agree that ten individuals, including Elijah of blessed memory, Batya, and Joshua, never experienced death.”93 Similarly, when the late eleventh-century scholar and poet Joseph ha-Levi ben Ḥalfon refers in a piyyuṭ on the theme of redemption to the messiah with the unusual epithet of “the absent one” (ha-neʿelam), he too is likely drawing on overlapping semantic fields within the Jewish and Islamic traditions.94 It is perhaps owing to the Jews’ internalization of the idea of a delayed savior, moreover, that early eleventh-century Fatimid missionaries could have hoped to win over Jewish converts by suggesting that a phrase in Daniel 12:12 (“happy is he that waits and comes”) should be understood to mean “Blessed is the imām of those who proclaim the oneness of God,” i.e. the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim.95 In at least certain parts of the Near East, mahdist beliefs may have also occasioned, or at the very least heightened, messianic anticipation among the Jews. Reviewing messianic movements in Yemen in the Middle Ages, one historian of the modern period suggests that “it is no coincidence that when Yemen was governed by a dynasty of rulers who had mahdist pretensions and who actively sought the coming of the messianic age, messianic hope were intensified among the Jews.”96 The clearest indication of such mahdist influence concerns the Jewish messianic figure described in Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen.” Maimonides writes that he is not surprised to hear that the Yemenite pretender found such a large following; surely many were persuaded to believe in him on account of “their sorry plight, their ignorance regarding the importance and high rank of the messiah, and their mistaken belief that his [the messiah’s] rise will be like that of Ibn Mahdī, which they are witnessing.”97 In one regard, the emergence of such messianic feelings can be viewed as an understandable and desperate reaction to the conversionary pressure that in this case accompanied mahdist excitement. At the same time, their eruption also speaks to a commonality of experience, a congruence of religious sentiment between Jew and Muslim. The fusion of Jewish and Islamic religious ideas in the unfolding of this episode is further implied in a circular letter that Maimonides addressed to the scholars of southern France in 1194 or 1195.98 Primarily concerned with Maimonides’ opposition to astrology, the letter mentions in passing an incident that occurred approximately twentytwo years earlier in which a man representing himself as “a messenger come to prepare the way for the king messiah” appeared in Yemen proclaiming the



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imminent onset of the redemption—an episode identified by most with the events described in the “Letter to Yemen.” Significantly, in his missive to the French scholars Maimonides alludes to the fact that the Yemenite messianic leader attracted a following that was interconfessional in its makeup: “Many people, Jews and Arabs, gathered about him,” he notes.99 The Jews’ susceptibility to mahdist influences is further suggested by an altogether different set of materials that have already been briefly introduced, namely materials depicting the official religious propaganda campaign, or daʿwa, of the Ismāʿīlīs as supported by the Fatimid rulers. A text that purports to offer instructions for those directly participating in that effort suggests that when encountering a Jew, one should “hold his attention by speaking to him about the messiah and telling him that he is the same as the mahdī. . . .  By this and similar speech you will soon make them your followers.”100 That this source offers a more or less accurate portrayal of the methods of the Ismāʿīlī daʿwa is, moreover, confirmed by the Karaite biblical exegete Yefet ben ‘Eli. In his commentary on Daniel 11:29–35 Yefet finds allusions to various events that occurred during the reign of the Fatimid dynasty, including the vigorous dissemination of Ismāʿīlī doctrine among Jews by means of the allegorical interpretation of scripture. Commenting on the words “he will then attend to those who forsake the holy covenant” (Daniel 11:30), Yefet writes that by this he [Daniel] informs us that [the Fatimid caliph] will deceive them by smooth and soft words. . . . They will take certain verses of the Bible that pertain to the messiah and apply them to the sāḥib al-waqt [the mahdī] and interpret them accordingly; they will also allegorize the Sabbath and the festivals . . . All this began in the Maghrib many years ago, and a great many of Israel became apostates and accepted his doctrine.101 In fact, several such interpretations of biblical verses are attributed to Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, the chief dāʿī under the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim.102 Maimonides’ suggestion that Yemen’s Jews may have been led to accept the self-proclaimed redeemer who appeared in their midst because of a misguided comparison of the messiah and the mahdī thus appears to be a reasonable observation about the way Jewish and Islamic conceptions of the redemption indeed became connected in the minds of adherents of both religious communities.



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We have explored at some length the impact of mahdist notions and mahdist activism on Jewish messianism; such exchanges illuminate the specific texture of the messianic anticipation that flourished among Jews living in the Islamic world. But such exchanges are also significant in that they underscore the fact that even with regard to contemplating the figure of the future redeemer—a pursuit ostensibly internal to Jewish spiritual life—the conceptualization of the Jewish royal family was colored by an implicit association of the lines of King David and the Prophet Muḥammad.

Messianic Anticipation and Davidic Nesiʾim Given the evident intensity of Jewish messianic anticipation in the Middle Ages, we turn now to consider whether veneration for Davidic dynasts in the Jewish community was affected by what might have easily been regarded as their messianic potential. The question is not whether nesiʾim were regularly viewed as messianic figures—it seems clear that they were not—but whether their popularity drew upon widespread messianic feelings in Jewish society, focusing such feelings and on occasion facilitating their expression. While the evidence for such messianism is not abundant, there are nonetheless some rather significant indications that nesiʾim were indeed viewed in precisely such a light. Thinking back to Abraham al-Raḥbī’s genealogy once more we note that the text concludes with a prayer for the speedy appearance of the redeemer: “May God give our lord and us the merit of the coming of the messiah, the son of David, speedily and in the near future. So may it be [His] will.” As noted, the juxtaposition in the text of a messianic prayer alongside the celebration of the unnamed nasi’s Davidic lineage—in the previous line al-Raḥbī’s subject is in fact referred to as “the seed of our lord King David, the anointed one of God [meshiaḥ Adonay]”—would surely have been understood as meaningful by al-Raḥbī’s contemporaries. The repetition of the word mashiaḥ in both clauses, moreover, would undoubtedly have strengthened the impression of the nasi as simultaneously a descendant of King David and a potential progenitor of the messiah. A note of messianic anticipation involving a nasi is also evident in a letter sent by the Fustat judge ‘Eli ben Amram to the physician Abraham ha-Kohen Ibn Furāt.103 The letter opens with elaborate eulogies for the addressee: after eighteen lines of rhyming panegyric, ‘Eli informs Abraham ha-Kohen that his praises are recited regularly in the Palestinian-rite synagogue in Fustat,



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the synagogue falling under the jurisdiction of the nasi Daniel ben ʿAzarya. It is the reference to Daniel’s jurisdiction that in turn triggers the following: “May he [Daniel] and his children live long, may the Holy One of Israel guard them, and may the redeemer issue from them [ume-hem yihye ha-goʾel].” While the wish that the redeemer should come during someone’s lifetime is common in letters from the Geniza—according to Goitein it is in fact one of the telltale signs of the ubiquity of popular messianism—the suggestion that he might actually come from someone’s family is not and would appear to indicate that the writer had Daniel’s Davidic ancestry specifically in mind. Another hint of the messianic aura that seems to have encircled Daniel ben ʿAzarya is to be found in the copy of a letter sent to the nasi by a loyal supporter, possibly the same Abraham ha-Kohen to whom the previous correspondence was addressed. This missive complains about ‘Eli ben Amram, whom we encountered above as well.104 The letter writer informs Daniel that his letter of the seventeenth of Elul has been received. And once again, it is the mention of Daniel’s name that prompts the expression of a messianic wish on the part of the writer: “May God prolong your life, humiliate those who are jealous of you and who are your enemies . . . and carry out during your lifetime the promises He made to your forefathers.” As suggested by Goitein, the writer is likely alluding to biblical passages such as Psalm 132 that were traditionally understood in a decidedly eschatological light. Another allusion to Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s messianic potential occurs in a letter sent during roughly the same period. In the early 1050s, the cantor Yefet ben David ben Shekhanya wrote one of a number of letters to Daniel imploring him for authorization to receive a larger share of “the market” in Fustat— in other words, a greater percentage of the income from the supervision of the ritual slaughter of meat.105 The relationship between Yefet and Daniel was a tense one. From other letters we learn that Daniel had previously considered Yefet to be a troublemaker, at one point going so far as to request that the leaders of the Fustat community excommunicate him. It is understandable, then, that in turning to his one-time rival for assistance Yefet should have adopted a flattering, even obsequious tone. And so perhaps for that reason Yefet too refers to the messianic potential of Daniel’s family in a string of florid, poetic praises of his addressee. “May He who guards the souls of the righteous,” he writes, “guard him [Daniel] and preserve his three sons, the nesiʾim, and bring the redeemer in his lifetime and through him [ve-yavi hagoʾel be-yamav ve-ʿal yadav]. So may it be [His] will.” Again, the expressed hope that salvation should occur in someone’s lifetime is a familiar one in



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letters from the Geniza. The idea that someone should play a direct role in bringing about that event, on the other hand, was not, suggesting that in this text, as in those cited above, a standard formula was modified and intensified in specific recognition of Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s unique genealogical status. Given the way passing mention of a Davidic dynast could trigger messianic allusions in ordinary correspondence, it is no surprise to find that messianic themes might play an even more prominent role in panegyric works written to honor someone from the line of King David.106 One such work was composed by ‘Eli ben Amram. Apparently written sometime after 1063, the poem was likely addressed to one of two prominent eleventh-century nesiʾim: David ben Daniel or David ben Hezekiah. Though obscure in a number places, the poem’s overall structure and meaning are nonetheless relatively straightforward. The text begins by citing a midrash according to which God created three types of fruits: those with a peel, those with a pit, and those with neither a peel nor a pit. Just so, the poem continues, there are among the Jewish people those who are “righteous and free of degradation . . . these are the sons of Salmon and Nahshon / the honorable sons of Obed and Jesse.” Referring to four of the ancestors of King David, the poem thus combines the notion of the special and distinct status of the House of David among the Jews with the perception of it as a perfect and unblemished lineage. Moving from the mythic past to the speaker’s own time, the poem also shifts its focus from the collective to the individual: “And [unique] among them is God’s chosen one, their prince, / wondrously anointed before the nations. . . . He is David, the second to be anointed, / the head of all the chiefs of the nesiʾim.”107 Having introduced its subject, the poem again switches its temporal orientation, gazing at this point into the messianic future. This second shift is effected by a description of the subject as “designated in the past and for the future / as the nasi of God’s people.” Expressing the idea that the personal success of the subject was foreordained, the line also reflects upon the way historical and future time—the mythic past and the messianic period—are represented simultaneously in members of the Davidic line. The last segment of the text comprises an extended set of images connected with the future redemption that are set in motion by the subject of the eulogy. According to the poem, “he will inherit the valley [the land of Israel] and the territories, / and subjugate all the wicked and sinners.” At that point “those sleeping in the graves will awaken, / and with the dew of light he will revive the spirits.” The poem ultimately concludes with a vision of the restored city of Jerusalem that is formulated in terms that are unmistakably messianic: “They will



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come to his ancient city, / with sacrifices of lambs . . . and with them the shepherds and the princes, / the Tishbite, the son of Zadok, and the prophets.” The poem moves across two axes. Along one it draws inward, progressively sharpening its focus. Beginning with the Jewish people, “the jewel of the nations,” it narrows first to concentrate on the line of King David, ultimately settling on the nasi David, its particular subject. Intersecting with this concentric movement is a simultaneous motion along a linear, temporal trajectory. Commencing with the biblical past, the poem moves into the present and ultimately reaches into the messianic future. These converging lines of motion powerfully reinforce the association of Davidic dynast and Davidic destiny. That messianic anticipation played a role in the popularity of the Davidic line is also implied by two important texts that seek to discredit the royal family and its special status within the Jewish community. The striking recurrence of a seemingly inexplicable motif in the “Scroll of Evyatar” and the Judeo-Arabic version of the Bustanay story suggests that in at least certain cases members of the Davidic line could indeed set off tremors of messianic excitement among their contemporaries—or so, at least, opponents of the Davidic line apparently feared. As noted above in Chapter 3, the “Scroll of Evyatar” was written as an assault on David ben Daniel and his efforts to wrest authority away from the Palestinian gaonate in the last decades of the eleventh century. One of the primary concerns of the “Scroll,” we observed, was to discredit the significance of his royal lineage, with the opening section of the text devoted to a critical review of the sinful behavior of King David’s biblical heirs and the consequent nullification of the divine pact with the House of David. We now consider a second theme that is introduced in the same section. In the midst of this argument and with little apparent relevance to his overall strategy, Evyatar introduces a rabbinic tradition according to which “a son of David, who is the messiah, was already born on the day that Jerusalem was destroyed.”108 The reference to a messiah born before the destruction of the Temple seems out of place. To be sure, one could argue that Evyatar was compelled to cite some such tradition lest his wholesale assault on the legitimacy of the Davidic line appear to rule out even the traditional belief in a Davidic savior. And there may well be something to that; but there appears to be another motive at work as well—namely, a concern with muting the messianic aura that enveloped his Davidic rivals. Evyatar not only undercuts the popular perception of the Davidic line’s nobility and sanctity, he also appears to want to limit its contemporary messianic potential.



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Such an interpretation is strengthened by the fact that the same tradition also appears in the Judeo-Arabic Bustanay story. After describing the tainted line that descended from Bustanay, that text concludes: May God send to His people the awaited redeemer, who comes from the pure line and who is unsullied by this taint since he was born before the destruction of the second Temple. This is in accordance with what our ancestors taught, namely, that God destroyed the Temple only after creating the individual who would ultimately rebuild it, just as he promised His people that He prepares a cure before sending affliction, as is implied in the prophetic words “When I will heal Israel” [Hosea 7:1]. Similarly, as is well known, the existence of the awaited one was made known before the destruction of the Temple when He said: “Zerubbabel’s hands have laid the foundation of this house, and Zerubbabel’s hands shall complete it” [Zechariah 4:9]. Speedily then may God bring gladness to His people! While it is possible to argue for the necessity of such a tradition in the “Scroll of Evyatar” so as to be able to preserve the normative belief in a Davidic messiah, no such imperative exists in the case of the Bustanay story. For the Bustanay narrative explicitly acknowledges the existence of legitimate, messianic candidates: descendants of King David who live in foreign lands “who are not from the line of Bustanay, and [who] are the only descendants of King David . . . free of this taint.” In the Bustanay story, in other words, the idea of a messiah born before the time of the destruction of the Temple appears altogether uncalled for—unless, of course, we assume that by including it the author was implicitly trying to neutralize messianic excitement attaching to contemporary members of the Davidic line. In light of this, it would seem that both the “Scroll of Evyatar” and the Judeo-Arabic Bustanay story take it more or less for granted that messianic anticipation was an integral part of the cachet that Davidic dynasts enjoyed in medieval Jewish society. A final connection between medieval messianism and the Davidic claimants who are the subject of this study emerges from what, at first glance, appears to be a rather suspicious and unusual source: a forged letter that is reproduced in a fictive biography of Maimonides. Ostensibly a copy of a missive sent by the master to the Jewish community of Fez, the text describes the activities of a certain Jew in Isfahān, Abū Saʿīd ibn Dāʾūdī, and recounts how the writer slowly became convinced of his messianic role. He writes that he began to hear about



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Abū Saʿīd from merchants who arrived in Egypt from the East. One such group told of how Abū Saʿīd had recently emerged from a seven-year period of selfimposed seclusion, gathering around himself a large following that included both Jews and Muslims. His interest piqued, the writer reports that he decided to send his brother, David, to Isfahān to investigate the matter further. A year and a half later, the writer excitedly concludes, his brother returned to Egypt with proof that the rumors were true: he had not only met Abū Saʿīd, he had also obtained from him the answers to fifteen vexed legal questions whose resolution was to be a sign of the arrival of the time of redemption.109 Since its publication in 1882, scholars have recognized that the biography containing the letter includes much legendary material and that the letter itself is an unmistakable forgery that could not possibly have emanated from the pen of Maimonides. At the same time, there has also been a tendency to view the missive as a somewhat reliable—if misattributed—witness to a genuine late twelfth-century messianic movement, possibly one of those discussed earlier in this chapter.110 While I have misgivings about assigning too much credibility to a text that has so clearly perjured itself, it is significant, I believe, that the figure involved should be identified as Ibn Dāʾūdī. Whether the movement it describes is real or imagined, the letter provides yet another direct link between messianic excitement and the far-flung members of the medieval House of David.

* * * The sources we have considered indicate that on occasion living members of the Davidic line could become outlets for the throbbing pulse of messianic anticipation that characterized Jewish society in the Near East, and that, from time to time, erupted in outright messianic movements. While there is nothing to indicate that nesiʾim played a regular role in outbreaks of activist messianic fervor, there is suggestive evidence that a significant component of their status in Jewish society indeed involved their ability to harness and embody such messianic aspirations. In this and the preceding chapter we observed the way claims of Davidic lineage played out in contexts generated primarily by internal political and religious needs. In the next chapter we frame the promotion of biblical lineage against the backdrop of forces emanating from outside the Jewish community, exploring the way a concern with ancestry could serve the needs of various nonArab peoples as they sought cultural legitimacy in the medieval Islamic world.

Chapter 5

“The Sharīf of Every People Is Well-Born”: Genealogy and the Legitimization of Minority Culture

Adding his own voice to the frequently venomous literary debate over the respective place of Arab and non-Arab peoples in medieval Islamic society— the so-called shuʿūbiyya controversy—Ibn Qutayba (d. 889), the great ninth-century Arabic belletrist and polymath, himself of non-Arab, Persian extraction, writes in his Kitāb al-ʿarab (The Book of the Arabs): “Now the noblemen of the non-Arabs [ʿajam], their men of importance and their men of religion understand what is to their advantage and disadvantage and consider a proven genealogy to be a sign of nobility.”1 As Roy Mottahedeh explains, in so arguing Ibn Qutayba sought a way around the shuʿūbiyya divide, advocating the assimilation of the Arab and Persian upper classes, both of whom, he believed, had a mutual enemy in “the common people for whom no nasab is known.” Summarizing this position, Mottahedeh writes: “[Ibn Qutayba] who, in this same treatise affirms his own Persian origin, in effect believes that the new Arab ruling class and the older Iranian ruling class can have shared genealogical prejudice against their ‘rootless’ subordinates.”2 Ibn Qutayba’s observation, focusing as it does on the genealogical dimension of the debate concerning the place non-Arabs and non-Arab culture would occupy in Islamic society, has significant implications for our understanding of what I have characterized broadly as Near Eastern Jewry’s embrace of nasab. Not only do Ibn Qutayba’s comments remind us of the role that nasab played in the determination of status in that cultural environment, they suggest that through genealogical records of a proven, that is, Arab, sort, non-Arabs could hope to win recognition from the Arab population and its cultural elites. Genealogy, in other words, could bridge the gap between Arab



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and non-Arab and serve as a tool for the attainment of cultural legitimization. This view is powerfully expressed in Ibn Qutayba’s conviction that “nobility is a single tie, for the nobleman [sharīf ] of every people is well-born.”3 That Ibn Qutayba should have singled out genealogical fastidiousness as a possible means of reconciliation between shu‘ūbīs and their opponents is significant inasmuch as genealogy was of course one of the central issues over which the two parties fought, a focus that in and of itself speaks to the profound importance ascribed to lineage in Arab-Islamic society. Indeed, a critical theme in the often-heated literature of the shuʿūbiyya controversy focuses on the respective merits and shortcomings in the genealogies of the two sides. Though mainly a literary debate among cultural elites, the polemical attacks that were exchanged between shuʿūbīs and their rivals, which reached a peak during the Abbasid period, grew out of deep and simmering tensions that extended as far back as the seventh century, tensions that surrounded the unresolved status in the formative Islamic society of Muslims of non-Arab extraction. Such concerns came to the fore in the aftermath of the Islamic expansion. With its rapid conquest of the Near East and the annexation of lands populated by peoples of various races and ethnicities, the fledgling Arab polity confronted a new social reality vastly more complex and diverse than the one from which it had emerged. Over time a significant percentage of the native inhabitants of these territories accepted the new faith and succeeded in entering the still largely tribal society of their conquerors by attaching themselves as clients (mawālī; sing. mawla) to Arab patrons.4 Many not only embraced Islam, but came to identify with and make important contributions to Arabic literary culture as well. In principle, the mawālī were entitled to the same privileges as Arab Muslims; in practice, though, they were often treated as second-class citizens.5 But even with such discrimination they rapidly rose to prominent administrative, military, and scholarly positions in Muslim society during the period of Umayyad rule, a development that actually may have sharpened the resentments on both sides.6 And so despite—but perhaps also because of—the growing influence of the mawālī within Islamic society, bias against them festered among certain sectors of the Arab aristocracy. Concerns over such prejudice are revealed in traditions ascribed to Muḥammad that go out of their way to emphasize the equality of Arab and non-Arab. According to one such tradition, the Prophet declared that “people are equal like the teeth of a comb: the Arab has no ­advantage over the non-Arab, superiority being only in piety.”7 And to much the same end a similar clause was added to some versions of the Prophet’s

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“farewell address” (khuṭbat al-wadāʿ). According to such versions, the Prophet concluded his words by stressing humanity’s collective descent from Adam, who was himself made from clay, reiterating the religious equality of Arab and non-Arab.8 As these and other texts that were aimed at rectifying prevailing social injustices reveal, antipathy toward the mawālī was often articulated in terms that accentuated the superiority of Arabs over other peoples. Expressions of Arab pride focused on two subjects in particular: the aesthetic beauty and rhetorical power of the Arabic language and the nobility and precision of pure Arabian genealogies. The first of these notions is asserted in bold fashion by the linguist Ibn Fāris (d. 1004) in the third chapter of his al-Ṣāḥibī. The chapter heading is revealing in and of itself: “Arabic is the best and richest of all languages.” In support of this claim Ibn Fāris refers to the unrivaled expressiveness of Arabic, which “cannot be translated into any other language . . . since the non-­Arabs cannot compete with us in the wide use of metaphorical expressions.”9 Ibn Fāris highlights the literary achievements of the Arabs as yet further evidence of his point. “They claim that [the Greeks] have poetry,” he writes, “but we have read these poems ourselves and have found that they are unimportant, of little beauty, and lacking proper meter. Truly, poetry is to be found only with the Arabs.”10 Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥuṣrī (d. 1022) underscores the same theme when he reports in the name of al-Jāḥiẓ the following observation: compared to Arabic “there is no other form of speech that is more delightful, useful, elegant, sweet to the ear, and . . . more excellent with respect to eloquence.”11 But to recognize the unique qualities of Arabic was not merely a question of literary aesthetics; it was also a matter of potentially great religious significance. Thus Ibn Qutayba insists that proper veneration of the miraculous quality of the Qurʾā n presupposes an acknowledgment of the superiority of Arabic to other languages. “The excellence of the Qurʾā n,” he writes, “can only be recognized by those possessing great perception and vast knowledge, who understand the various views and versatility in styles of the Arabs and how God distinguished their language above all others.”12 To be a good Muslim, he so much as says, one must subscribe to the idea of the linguistic preeminence of the Arabs. Champions of the Arab cause took no less pride in matters of genealogy. They emphasized both the nobility of their lineage as well as their ability to trace themselves back to common ancestors, reviling those who, like the Persians, seemed to minimize the relevance of pedigree and were in the habit of identifying themselves merely as hailing “from such and such a village.”13



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Such genealogical indifference was construed as a sign of cultural barbarity by Arab apologists, who, in the words of Mottahedeh, questioned whether a “group not related by traceable genealogies could be properly called a people.”14 In a chapter of his work devoted to the distinguishing characteristics of the Arabs, Ibn Fāris pays special attention to their care in matters of genealogy; “and we do not know,” he writes, “of any other nation that is as concerned as the Arabs with the preservation of genealogy.”15 The nexus between these two foci of Arab pride—ancestry and language—is reflected in the judgment of the eleventh-century philologist and historian al-Thaʿālibī (d. ca. 1038), himself a Persian by ancestry, that those confessing Islam believe that “the Prophet Muḥammad is the best messenger, Islam the best religion, the Arabs the best nation, and Arabic the best language.”16 As we might expect, the nobility of the family of Muḥammad played an important role in defining a sense of Arab genealogical superiority. As a statement attributed to the caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb indicates, Arabs felt a kind of collective participation in the sanctity of the Prophet’s line, a vicarious ennoblement through his descendants. Describing the principles underlying his organization of the dīwān at Medina, an institution that distributed pensions graduated according to priority of conversion to Islam, ʿUmar is reported to have said about Muḥammad: “He is our nobility [sharaf ], and his people are the noblest of Arabs; for the rest it follows proximity. The Arabs were ennobled by the Apostle of God.”17 ʿUmar’s words, pointing as they do to a second-hand participation in the nobility of the Prophet’s line, has significant implications for our consideration of the way Jewish society comprehended and related to the Davidic dynasts living in its midst. As we note below, Jews, too, appear to have experienced a kind of collective ennoblement through their proximity to members of their own noble, pure, and prophetic lineage. During the first two centuries of Abbasid rule, as the mawālī and their descendants exercised unprecedented influence within Eastern Islamic society, resentment over lingering Arab chauvinism erupted in the literature of what has come to be known as the shuʿūbiyya movement. Named after a qurʾānic verse that attributes to God’s own doing the division of mankind into “peoples [shuʿūb] and tribes” (49:13), shuʿūbīs began for the first time to challenge openly and sometimes quite angrily the claims of Arab superiority—some with the intention of establishing equality (taswiyya) between Arab and non-Arab, others seeking to discredit Arab culture altogether. Though most shuʿūbī writers were Persian, their opposition was frequently voiced on behalf of non-Arab civilization generally. And so it is not surprising

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to find that from time to time members of other ethno-linguistic groups came to identify with shuʿūbī concerns and to participate in the polemical exchange themselves.18 A particularly noteworthy instance occurred in Muslim Spain. In the eleventh century, after the shuʿūbiyya movement in the Abbasid East had more or less run its course, a new wave of anti-Arab sentiment emerged in the multi-ethnic environment of al-Andalus. Though it drew heavily on the writings of earlier shuʿūbī writers, this movement was waged in the interests of an ethnically distinct non-Arab population, one comprising North African Berbers and various European peoples collectively referred to in contemporary sources as “Slavic” (saqlabī). The outstanding expression of Andalusian shuʿūbiyya sentiment is the Risāla of Ibn Gharsiya, a Christian of Basque origin who was taken as a child into captivity, raised as a Muslim, and eventually appointed kātib at the court of the Slav ruler Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī (d. 1044) and his son ʿAlī Iqbāl al-Dawla (d. 1076).19 It was probably during the latter’s reign and in his defense that Ibn Gharsiya composed his Risāla against the Arabs, a work that generated within a relatively short period of time numerous refutations, five of which are still extant and several more of which are known by name. Evaluating Ibn Gharsiya’s ultimate motives for writing the Risāla, James Monroe concludes that he was “a neo-Muslim attempting to extend the benefits of Islamic civilization to those non-Arab peoples who formed a large segment of the Andalusian community.”20 In their writings, most of which have been lost and are known today only through the angry rejoinders they elicited, shuʿūbī authors sought to challenge the assumption of Arab superiority. Shuʿūbīs countered the linguistic pride of their adversaries, insisting on the ugliness of Arabic and the pedestrian quality of the poetry that was composed in it. The ninth-century litterateur and opponent of the shuʿūbiyya, al-Jāḥiẓ, reproduces for the purposes of rebuttal one such argument in which the coarseness of Arabic is both asserted and associated with the Arabs’ humble, desert origins. “You have long dealt with camels,” al-Jāḥiẓ’s shuʿūbī propagandist maintains; “therefore, your speech, too, is clumsy and the sounds you use are rough . . . so that one might think there are only deaf people among you when you speak in public.”21 Shuʿūbīs also highlighted the Arabs’ meager attainments in science and technology as compared to those made by non-Arabs. According to an argument cited by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, shuʿūbīs contended that “non-Arab nations in every part of the world have . . . philosophy which they produce, and wonders which they devise by way of tools and crafts. . . . The Arabs, on the other



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hand . . . achieved nothing at all in the arts and crafts and made no mark in philosophy.”22 Ibn Gharsiya makes the same point in his Risāla: “The nonArabs are wise, mighty in knowledge, endowed with insight into natural philosophy and into the sciences of exact logic. . . . They made themselves masters of the physical and religious sciences, and not of the description of towering camels.”23 And it may have been with a similar end in view that the tenth-century Kitāb al-filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya (The Book of Nabatean Agriculture), in what would then constitute a rare instance of non-Persian shuʿūbī writing from the East, celebrates the technological advancement of the ancient inhabitants of Iraq as compared to the primitiveness of the recently arrived Arabs.24 Shuʿūbī writers also sought to dismiss the military and political achievements of their rivals, deriding the Arabs’ style of warfare as undignified, and pointing to the far more impressive historical tradition of kingship among the non-Arab peoples, a tradition that explicitly included the monarchy of David and Solomon. Ibn Gharsiya is particularly effusive about the bravery of the nonArabs on the battlefield. “These non-Arabs were avid for the flash of the sword,” he writes, “rather than for ladies endowed with earrings. . . . These non-Arabs were warriors, not guardians of palm branches or planters of palm-shoots; kings who recognized no overlords.”25 Shuʿūbī authors, though themselves Muslims, even tried to prevent the promoters of Arab civilization from taking any particular delight in the fact that God had chosen one of their own as His messenger. Some pointed out that prophecy was in fact far more prevalent among nonArab peoples; the Qurʾān itself, they noted, enumerates only four prophets who were Arabs, but many more of non-Arab extraction, among them Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Jesus. Ibn Gharsiya took a slightly different approach: “It is not astonishing that [Muḥammad’s] origin and root came from among you Arabs,” he writes, “for after all, pure gold is found in the dirt.”26 The Arab claim to genealogical preeminence was especially troubling to the defenders of non-Arab culture and in turn generated a variety of different responses. Shuʿūbī writers consistently engaged Arab ancestral claims in their writings. Some took on the literal understanding of nasab itself, challenging the very idea that an individual’s social status is really determined by his genealogical affiliations. A pronouncement attributed to the caliph al-Maʾmūn succinctly reflects such a concern: “Social rank is a genealogical affinity [nasab] that connects people. Thus, a noble Arab [sharīf al-ʿarab] is closer to a noble non-Arab [sharīf al-ʿajam] than he is to a base Arab, and a noble nonArab is closer to a noble Arab than he is to a base non-Arab. This is because

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noble men constitute a [distinct] class and base people constitute a [distinct] class.”27 In implicitly rejecting the equation of nobility with Arab ancestry, alMaʾmūn’s alleged statement reveals the vexations of non-Arabs who found themselves in a society in which an Arab pedigree seemed very much to matter. The position reflected in the caliph’s words is clear: nobility ought to be a function of socioeconomic and cultural advancement, not of lineage. In a similar vein, the poet Ibn al-Rūmī (d. 896), himself the son of a Byzantine father and a Persian mother, minimizes the importance of lineage in a poem addressed to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir (d. 867), a Persian governor of the province of Khurasān. Ibn al Rūmī writes: Inherited merit—may it not thrive—is not worthy of esteem Unless it is accompanied by something else that has been earned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Do not rely on anything other than what you yourself have done, And do not consider dignity that which has been inherited by genealogy. A man achieves eminence only by his own [merit] Even if he can count noble ancestors endowed with merit through their deeds.28 But not all shuʿūbī writers were so quick to discount nasab as a legitimate determinant of social status. Some, in fact, embraced the Arabs’ cherished “science of genealogy,” finding in it opportunities to raise the standing of non-Arab populations in Islamic society. Describing the enthusiasm with which some Persians came to engage in such genealogical research, Ignaz Goldziher writes that “the mawālī took hold . . . of the study of Arab antiquity . . . and they developed it far in excess of the framework of the old Arabic ʿilm al-ansāb.”29 In at least one respect it was actually quite understandable that shuʿūbīs should have been drawn to the field of Arab genealogy, for the recording of disgraces and shameful points (mathālib) in tribal ancestries had for a long time constituted an integral part of that discipline. A mastery of the genealogical traditions of the Arabs could thus serve the shuʿūbīs’ interests, supplying them with ammunition that could be redeployed to their own advantage. Commenting on the way cultural competition encouraged these intellectual pursuits, Goldziher observes that “the most eminent circles of pure Arab society [could] be degraded by genealogical means.”30 A work by Sahl



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ibn Hārūn (d. 830) entitled Kitāb asmāʾ baghayat al-quraysh fī al-jāhiliyya waman waladna (The Names of the Whores of Quraysh in the Pre-Islamic Period and Those They Bore) demonstrates the kind of damage that a noble pedigree could indeed sustain from such a partisan approach to Arab genealogical information.31 In much the same vein, other shuʿūbī writers seized upon the Arabs’ claim to descend from Ishmael, pointing out that the latter’s mother, Hagar, had been Abraham’s bondwoman. The Arabs, they were all too happy to point out, were thus, despite their boasting, the offspring of a slave. Ibn Qutayba was outraged by precisely this line of shuʿūbī argumentation that he found lurking in a work by the famed Arabic poet of Persian extraction, Abū Nuwās (d. 813 or 815). The passage that so upset him celebrates the notion that Persia was never native soil to Arab tribes, but rather the homeland of “the sons of free men . . . and therefore none of the sons of the putrid-smelling woman were to be found in it.” Ibn Qutayba spells out for his readers what he understands to be the implied meaning of Abū Nuwās’ lines. The phrase “sons of free men,” he explains, alludes to the Persians’ claim to be descendants of the biblical Isaac, while “sons of the putrid-smelling woman” refers to the Arabs’ alleged descent from the slave Hagar.32 According to Ibn Qutayba’s understanding, then, the poem reflects a shuʿūbī attempt to insult the Arabs by means of a distorted and subversive appeal to the Arabs’ own genealogical traditions.33 Whatever Abū Nuwās’ actual intentions may have been, Ibn Qutayba’s sensitivities demonstrate the way genealogy had become an important discursive battleground for ethnic and cultural competition between Arabs and non-Arabs. The dichotomies that Ibn Qutayba found in Abū Nuwās’ poem are also very much apparent in Ibn Gharsiya’s polemical work. Repeatedly Ibn Gharsiya contrasts the Arabs’ low birth with the nobility of the non-Arabs: “Your mother, O Arabs, was a slave to our mother. . . . There is no cutting off your relationship with Hagar. . . . As for these non-Arabs . . . the flag-showing prostitutes did not beget them, but rather Sarah the beautiful lady of prodigious nature.”34 Continuing in the same vein he writes: “Go gently, you children of slave women . . . for we are a strain rooted in pure lineages.”35 But if some shuʿūbī writers found solace in turning the conclusions of the Arabs’ genealogical science on its head, others pursued a different course of action, developing instead genealogical claims that were primarily concerned with promoting a glorious and indigenous non-Arab past. Sometimes this entailed appropriating the very terms of Arab genealogical boasting, as when the shuʿūbī poet Bashar ibn Burd (d. ca. 783) describes the nobility of his people, the Banū

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Fāris, by declaring them the “Quraysh of the non-Arabs.” 36 By choosing to articulate the distinction of the Banū Fāris in such a manner, Bashar demonstrates the way the genealogical pretensions of the Arabs could motivate as well as color the genealogical self-understanding of other peoples. At other times this might entail promoting one’s ancestry in ways that came into more direct conflict with the genealogical boasts of the Arabs. Commenting on this process, Shakwat Toorawa notes how the descendants of former Persian noblemen might turn to their own genealogy as a way of deflecting Arab claims of cultural and genealogical superiority. “Persian lineage,” he writes, “could . . . be valuably deployed, [as] in the case of dihqāns . . . whose own nobility was contrasted with—and posited as superior to—pure Arab parentage.”37 Such an appeal to the value of a distinctly Persian and pre-Islamic genealogy is reflected in another line by Bashar in which he declares: “I am a person of high class, raised above others, Khusraw is the grandfather through whom I claim precedence, and Sāsān was my father.”38 Referring to two famous pre-Islamic Persian kings, Bashar thus claims not just noble origins but an ancient lineage as well. A similar appeal to a distinctly Persian past developed at the court of the early Ṣaffārid rulers Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth (d. 861) and his brother ʿAmr (d. 879), whose patronage is credited with stimulating a renaissance of Persian literature and culture. The glories of the Ṣaffārids are recounted in the so-called Tārīkh-i Sīstān (The History of Sistan), an anonymous Persian-language chronicle whose original title has not come down to us.39 In the work, the core of which was written in the eleventh century, Yaʿqūb is provided with a spurious ancestry that tellingly traces him back to the Sasanians and the mythical Iranian ruler Jamshīd. The importance of this fabricated lineage in validating Ṣaffārid rule is reflected in the title of the section of the work devoted to Yaʿqūb’s career: “The history of the monarch of the world . . . Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth, his genealogy and a recounting of his greatness.” Here again legitimacy was achieved by means of a genealogical self-presentation with a uniquely Persian, and implicitly anti-Arab, twist. What makes the Ṣaffārid genealogical tradition so instructive for our purposes is that it is clearly linked to a literary program as well. As noted, the Ṣaffārids are credited with the revitalization of Persian literary culture. In the introduction to this work I suggested that the Jewish embrace of nasab might be profitably understood in terms of the kinds of motives usually associated with the Jews’ renewed interest in the aesthetic power of the Hebrew language in the Middle Ages. The case of the Ṣaffārids illustrates how these two



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enterprises—literary revival and genealogical pride—could indeed be linked in legitimizing minority culture in the Arab-Islamic world. As C. E. Bosworth has demonstrated, the Ṣaffārids were not unique in turning to Persian genealogy as a means of asserting cultural autonomy in the Islamic world. Other dynasties and notables embraced a similar strategy, claiming glorious ancestors from the Iranian past as a way of achieving legitimacy as well. Summarizing this process, he notes that “the Samanids of Transoxania traced their descent back to the hero Bahram Chubin; the Dailami Buyids had fabricated for themselves a genealogy going back to the Emperor Bahram Gur; and the Persianized Turkish Ghaznavids managed to attach themselves to the Sasanids.”40 Moreover, as the quote from Ibn Qutayba cited at the beginning of this chapter indicates, such genealogical boasts were now being backed up with documentation. In his al-Athār al-bāqiya, al-Bīrūnī actually provides a list of fourteen generations of ancestors allegedly substantiating the claim of the Buyids to descend from the fabled Persian ruler Bahrām.41 A similar attempt to provide an explicit and documented Persian genealogy is found in the preface to a prose version of the Shāhnāmah that was commissioned by Abū Manṣūr al-Tūsī, governor of Nīshāpūr in the middle of the tenth century and sometime associate of the Buyids. The preface contains a lengthy genealogy in which al-Tūsī’s ancestry is traced back to Kanarang, a commander of the Sasanian ruler Khusraw II.42 By attaching his own personal lineage to a text commemorating a succession of glorious Persian rulers, al-Tūsī demonstrates how national and individual genealogies could serve overlapping legitimizing functions. In putting forward such claims, and in being able to demonstrate them through explicit ancestor lists, Persians and Turks were not only seeking legitimacy in accordance with the values of a genealogically oriented Arab-­ Islamic society, they were also linking themselves to a prestigious non-Arab past of their own. Such a multivalent genealogical maneuver, exhibiting at one and the same time tendencies toward acculturation and cultural resistance, offers helpful ways of conceptualizing the complex impetuses that lay behind the elaboration of Jewish ancestral traditions in precisely the same period. For Jews also began to think of themselves in more deliberately genealogical terms but, in so doing, reinforced their ties to a glorious and distinct past that inevitably stood in contrast to that of the Arabs. Genealogy could serve the needs of non-Arabs in still other ways too. For some the value of an Arab lineage remained unrivaled, and so it should come as little surprise to find that there were some Persians who sought legitimacy in the

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cultivation of spurious lineages tracing themselves back to Arab ancestors. So apparently common a phenomenon was this that Arabic sources even use a specific verb form for the creation of a forged Arab pedigree. The Tahirids who ruled as the semi-autonomous governors of Khurasān during the ninth century are a notable example of such pretensions. In order to locate themselves squarely within the Arab-Islamic tradition they tried to attach themselves as mawālī to the ancient Arab Khuzāʿa tribe, an attempt that many found ridiculous.43 As Amikam Elad has shown, such efforts were in fact common among a wide range of individuals associated with the Abbasid court: poets, singers, government secretaries, administrators, and notables all sought entrée into Arab-­ Islamic society by means of doctored pedigrees purportedly tracing their lineage back to bona fide Arab ancestors.44 A particularly telling source comments on the social pressures conducing to such behavior. Describing a Persian dihqān from Kūfa during the reign of al-Rashīd who acquired an Arab lineage for himself, the text notes that he deemed that he was in need of an Arabic nasab when he obtained wealth and a high position.45 In the Islamic West non-Arabs sought cultural legitimacy through genealogical connections to ancient and ennobling ancestors as well. As Maya Shatzmiller has demonstrated, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the period of the tāʾifa kingdoms, Berber rulers in Spain and North Africa became particularly interested in tracing themselves back to Arab forebears as a way of justifying themselves and their rule. Sometimes this connection was effected through a biblical ancestor.46 The concern with providing the Berbers with a legitimate Arab lineage is especially evident in a work entitled Kitāb al-ansāb (Book of Genealogies) that was compiled in the early fourteenth century from a variety of earlier materials.47 Despite its seeming lack of coherence, Kitāb alansāb is unified by a general interest in presenting an alternative to the official narrative of Berber history and with depicting the Berber role in Islamic civilization in a more unambiguously positive light. In this connection Shatzmiller points out that the work is largely concerned with three overarching themes: portraying the Berbers as having peacefully converted to Islam, defending their Arab origins, and praising the virtues of the Berber race. The Cordoban chronicler Abū Marwān Ibn Ḥayyān (d. ca. 1076) provides a sense of how such an Arab lineage could serve both the political and the cultural interests of individual Berbers aspiring to status and prestige. Writing about the eleventh-century Zīrid ruler of Granada, he comments: “Ḥabbūs gave himself the aura of a literary man and tried to hide his pure Berber ancestry by claiming a Ḥimyarite origin . . . so they would not appear in any way less



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civilized than the Arab and hispanized kings of the peninsula.”48 For the Zīrids, who sought to distinguish themselves as full participants in Arabic society, an Arab genealogy played a crucial legitimizing function. The alleged Arab ancestry of the Zīrids was not, moreover, an isolated phenomenon: other Berber groups, including the Ṣanhāja and the Afṭasids, put forward similar genealogical claims. Summarizing these developments, Shatzmiller notes that the Arab science of genealogy was an effective tool by means of which “new converts to Islam could hope to achieve equality with other elements in their society.”49 The quest for legitimacy through a genealogical connection to the Arab past is also reflected in the increasing popularity in al-Andalus of the nisba al-anṣārī, an appellation that refers to members of two Yemeni tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, who supported Muḥammad after his emigration to Medina. A comparison of biographical dictionaries compiled in the tenth century with others from the twelfth demonstrates that the number of individuals in alAndalus claiming anṣārī lineage rose considerably during the period in question, growing from approximately 30 to almost 50 percent of the population. As we might expect, Berbers were among those who stood to gain most from this process. Members of the Banū ʿAbd al-Wahhāb clan are recorded in early sources as Ṣanhāja Berbers, yet in Ibn Bashkuwāl’s twelfth-century biographical dictionary, Kitāb al-ṣila, they are identified with the nisba al-anṣārī. Considering this situation Maribel Fierro points out that the nisba had a dual significance in Andalusian society, marking both genealogical descent from the helpers of Muḥammad in Medina as well as a more general religious dedication to helping God and the Muslim community. As such, Fierro argues, it offered a useful and, at the very least, genealogically suggestive way of legitimizing those lacking in nasab.50

* * * Our consideration of the way non-Arab Muslims in the Middle Ages turned to ancestry as a means of self-legitimization offers instructive lessons for conceptualizing the development of Jewish genealogical traditions during the same period. Jews, it would seem, in emphasizing and documenting their own biblical lineages, were participating in a broader phenomenon that affected non-Arab populations across the Islamic world. The Persian and Berber examples suggest that an aspect of medieval Jewish society’s new interest in genealogy involved a collective concern with cultural legitimacy. Just as nonArab Muslims sought validation through an ennobling record of ancestors, so

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too might the Jews hope to win recognition within Arab-Islamic society by highlighting their own prophetic lineages. Such an interpretation of Jewish genealogical concerns hinges on the notion that Jewish society as a whole derived a kind of collective, vicarious legitimization from the biblical lineages we have been documenting, and there is good reason to believe that this was in fact the case. That individual genealogies may indeed have provided a kind of collective reassurance to Jews finds support in the fact that medieval sources reveal a considerable degree of enthusiasm for biblical lineages among those with little or nothing to gain from them. We recall, for example, Abraham al-Raḥbī’s excitement about the Davidic ancestry of the nasi whose pedigree he copied. A letter writer addressing the nasi Solomon ben Jesse gives voice to the same communal investment in Davidic lineage when he refers to his addressee as “the descendant of the anointed one of Jacob and the sweet singer of Israel” and prays that God should “make us rejoice through the merit of [your] noble family.”51 Indeed, as we have seen, medieval sources regularly conceptualize the lineage of nesiʾim in terms of its significance for the collective. The same identification with the Davidic line also seems to underlie the fascination of Benjamin of Tudela, Petaḥya of Regensburg, and others with the ancestor lists of the royal family. And I would argue that a vicarious association with biblical lineage similarly underlies medieval Jews’ interest in the story of Eldad ha-Dani. These and other instances point to the conclusion that biblical genealogies possessed meaning for Jewish society generally, a meaning that transcended whatever social value they simultaneously provided to their specific claimants. A sense of the collective importance of the royal line for Jewish society is also evident in a pair of sources introduced in Chapter 1 that describe the visit of nesiʾim to a local community in Syria. The first is a letter written at the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth pertaining to an upcoming visit by the nasi Judah ben Josiah.52 The letter writer, Joseph ben Obadiah, describes preparations being made in anticipation of the nasi’s arrival. The writer, who took responsibility for organizing the visit, describes the excitement among the locals, who inquire “each day about when you will arrive so that we may go out and meet [your] entourage.” The writer further reports that he arranged for the nasi’s accommodations, taking care to find a location close to the synagogues and spacious enough to allow the nasi to receive the town leaders who wanted to pay their respects. He concludes by stating that the entire community anxiously anticipates the time “when the star shall pass through our land,” an allusion to Numbers 24:17, traditionally interpreted as a prophetic allusion to the coming of the messiah.



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In its flowery language the letter may exaggerate the local community’s support, but it nonetheless demonstrates how a nasi’s arrival could be an elaborately orchestrated affair. In this case, a local contact was instrumental in ensuring that the necessary preparations were made before Judah arrived, preparations that included securing a proper venue for the nasi’s stay—one that would allow him to hold court and facilitate his contact with local notables—and arousing the Jewish community’s excitement. This last task was particularly important when a nasi came to collect money, as was apparently the case in this instance. The nasi’s entitlement to “honor”—a polite term for financial assistance—on account of his illustrious ancestry is repeatedly stressed by the letter writer. The community, he writes, has been notified of “what is appropriate [for them] to grant you by way of honor . . . on account of your wisdom and greatness, and on account of your pure ancestors, ‘the holy ones in the land,’ through whose merit we live.” In response, members of the community assured Joseph that “we will not appear empty-handed, but will offer a gift according to our means. For, we have a portion in David and an inheritance in the son of Jesse!” A letter in the same hand from about the same time describes plans for a similar visit by the nasi Hodaya ben Jesse. Here again the letter writer informs the guest of preparations being made in advance of his arrival. He reports that he reminded members of the local community of their responsibility toward the nasi, and notes that they provided him with assurances of their munificent intentions. “We will not appear empty-handed,” he reports them as having said, “and according to our means we will offer a gift. For, we have a portion in David and an inheritance in the son of Jesse!”53 Both letters appear to describe something encountered frequently in Geniza sources: a pesiqa, or public pledge drive for the benefit of a needy individual or institution.54 What makes these particular pledge drives noteworthy is not so much the willingness of the community to put up funds to support nesiʾim, but rather the sense of collective responsibility for the line of King David that they invoke. In both cases the fairly common practice of publicly collecting funds for the needy acquires added significance, as it is construed as a way of honoring the Davidic family. Islamic sources also took note of the excitement that a visit by a member of the Davidic family could trigger within the Jewish community. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī mentions that in the middle of the fourteenth century a certain Nafīs ibn Dāwūd ibn ʿAnan al-Dāwūdī, whose name suggests that he was a Karaite, came to Cairo “on matters of status and lineage [ḥasab wa-nasab].”

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Ibn Ḥajar observes that when he arrived “the Jews flocked to him and delighted in him.”55 Ibn Ḥajar’s observation marks a fitting transition inasmuch as the attention of Muslim society seems to have been an important aspect of Jewish enthusiasm for Davidic lineage. Thinking once again of our twelfth-century travelers, it is apparent that part of the excitement that Benjamin and Petaḥya felt about the exilarch had to do with the respect they imagined Muslim society also had for his lineage. For both of them the documented pedigree of the exilarch was significant in part because it was valued by Muslims and therefore symbolized a meaningful recognition of Jewish society generally. Benjamin, we recall, describes with great pride the way the exilarch was greeted by Muslims in Baghdad with the cry “Make way for our lord, the son of David.” And in similar fashion Petaḥya notes the affection that the caliph felt for the exilarch because of his descent from King David. A sense of the importance of Muslim valuation of Davidic lineage is also reflected in the Geniza letter discussed earlier that recounts the appearance in a town in northern Palestine of a man who passed himself off as a nasi. As noted, the local population became ecstatic at the impostor’s arrival. Members of the Jewish community “accepted his rule, honored and respected him, and did not bother to examine his genealogy. They thirstily imbibed his words, eulogized and praised him before the Muslims, and extolled him in the presence of kings and princes.”56 As the last sentence suggests, Jews were aware of Muslim respect for the Davidic family and were delighted to have one of its members in their midst.

* * * In this chapter I have argued that in its concern with biblical lineage medieval Jewish society in the Near East was participating in a process of redefinition that affected other minority groups in the Islamic world as well. Persians, Berbers, and Jews all embraced nasab as a way of laying claim to legitimacy. There were, however, important differences in the way genealogy was utilized by the various groups. While Persians and Berbers were frequently concerned with the ancestry of an entire race—the descent of the Persians from Isaac, or the Berbers from Ḥimyar, for example—the Jewish genealogical traditions discussed in this work focus on the lineage of specific individuals. These two forms of genealogy, the collective and the individual, are not, however, as distinct as they might at first seem. Earlier we noted expressions



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of Arab pride that involved an identification with the nobility of the family of the Prophet. The statement attributed to ʿUmar discussed above invokes the notion of the Arabs’ vicarious and collective benefit from the nobility of the ahl al-bayt. A similar connection between personal and national genealogy is evident in Jewish sources as well. Indeed, works like Seder ʿolam zuṭa and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh demonstrate the way the two were very much intertwined: in both chronicles the succession of the Davidic line anchors what is nonetheless a national, or collective, history. Variation in the deployment of ʿilm al-nasab by these groups follows from the significant differences in what Jews, Persians, and Berbers hoped to achieve through their respective genealogical claims. For Persians and Berbers, who were Muslim but not Arab, genealogy was most important as a tool for overcoming racial barriers. By staking out a direct connection to the Arab tribal past, or, conversely, by challenging the worthiness of Arab lineage, Persians and Berbers were addressing their perceived ethnic marginalization within ArabIslamic society. The issue for the Jews was somewhat different. Jews were not seeking a place in the family of Arab peoples; rather, they sought to be recognized as a people who, like the Arabs, took genealogical matters seriously and, moreover, were ennobled by prestigious and documented lineages. Both strategies entail an appeal to genealogy, and indeed the two senses, that of national and that of individual lineage, are expressed by idea of nasab. Yet because of their distinctive needs, Persian and Berber genealogists tended to focus on national origins, while the efforts of Jewish genealogists were focused on individual pedigrees. There was, moreover, no pressing need to clarify the collective lineage of the Jews inasmuch as the universal genealogy of nations that crystalized during the Abbasid period made use of a biblical schema beginning with Adam that came with a ready-made account of the Jews’ origins.57

Conclusion

In the concluding chapter of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides depicts the messianic age as a time when, among other things, the Jews will once again be made aware of their biblical ancestries. He writes: In the days of the king messiah, when his kingdom will be established and all Israel will gather round him, the pedigrees of all will be determined by him through the Holy Spirit. . . . First, he will purify the descendants of Levi, declaring “This one, of good birth, is a priest; this one, of good birth, is a Levite.” . . . The descent of the Israelites will be recorded according to their tribes. Thus he will announce: “This one is of such-and-such a tribe, and this one is of such-and-such a tribe.”1 Maimonides’ formulation is based upon a passage in the Babylonian Talmud (Qiddushin 70b–71a) that describes a miraculous future discrimination between individuals of legitimate and illegitimate birth. In envisioning a scenario in which all Jews will one day be explicitly traced to biblical tribes, Maimonides thus seems to take some liberty with his rabbinic source. According to one possible reading, Maimonides’ version implicitly acknowledges the importance of the kinds of genealogical concerns we have been examining. He seems to suggest, in fact, that the recovery of such information constitutes a significant stage in the national restoration as he understood it. According to another reading of the passage in the Mishneh Torah, however, Maimonides may be deflecting the excessive genealogical preoccupations of Jews in his day. In suggesting that accurate genealogical knowledge of any sort will be attained only at some undisclosed future moment—and by means of “the Holy Spirit”—this passage can just as easily be read as a caution against placing undue confidence in contemporary ancestral claims and genealogical records. For the time being, he may be saying, such matters are best set aside. In either reading, though, biblical lineages seem to have evident significance. Whether we take the final chapter of the Mishneh Torah as an affirmation



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of the intrinsic importance of biblical pedigrees for the national redemption or as a critique of the genealogical obsessions of Jewish society in the twelfth century, the concern with biblical ancestry is unavoidable and seems of a piece with the material examined in this book.

* * * In the preceding chapters we explored the importance that claimants of Davidic ancestry enjoyed in medieval Jewish society in the Islamic East. One of the main conclusions to emerge from our investigation is that Jewish attitudes regarding genealogy developed considerably in the Middle Ages, and they did so under the influence of and in direct relation to Islamic society’s concern with nasab. The materials concerned with the ancestral claims of members of the Davidic family, we have argued, thus reveal not only a shift in the way the royal line itself was perceived, but also a new emphasis on the importance of genealogy more broadly within Jewish society. Throughout we have also noted parallel developments among other genealogically defined groups in the Jewish community—most notably among kohanim, but to a lesser extent among Levites and others as well. While Jewish tradition surely provided the genealogical resources that were ultimately pressed into service, the impetus for this broader transformation, I have argued, appears to have come from the nasab-oriented culture of the dominant Muslim society. Indeed, as we noted in the previous chapter, just as non-Arab Muslims turned to the Arab science of genealogy as a way of establishing cultural legitimacy, so, too, it seems, could non-Muslim minorities like the Jews. Given all this, it is worth considering the extent to which the Jewish embrace of nasab might in fact also be viewed as part of a more comprehensive concern with medieval Jewish society’s continuities with its biblical past. For at the broadest level, the cultural emphasis placed on genealogy speaks to anxieties about the links connecting the present and previous generations. This concern is best known from and most clearly addressed in the so-called “chain of tradition” literature, whose origins can be traced to the very period we have been focusing on—a genre of historiographical writing that includes works such as the anonymous ninth-century Seder tanaʾim ve-amoraʾim (Order of Mishnaic and Talmudic Sages) and the “Epistle of Sherira Gaʾon” and Kitāb al-taʾrīkh that have come up at various points in this work as testimonies to genealogical interest. Such texts delineate a chronological sequence of religious authorities through whom the rabbinic tradition was faithfully transmitted from one generation to the next.

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Karaites, too, produced such works. “Their purpose,” explains Yosef Yerushalmi, was “to establish and demonstrate an unbroken succession of teaching and authority from the Bible, through the Talmud, and often up to the time of the author himself.”2 As characterized by Gerson Cohen, such works offered an important defense of medieval Jewish tradition by effectively backing it up with a comprehensive isnād, an authenticating lineage of transmission that was a critical feature of Islamic hadīth sources. Maimonides furnishes his readers with just such a chain of transmission in the introduction to the Mishneh Torah, enumerating by name forty generations of sages who faithfully passed on the contents of the Oral Law. While to anyone versed in rabbinic literature Maimonides’ list is reminiscent of the opening paragraphs of tractate Avot, in significant ways it is something altogether different. Like an isnād, and unlike the rabbinic model on which it is based, Maimonides’ list precedes the presentation of the law, thus, in effect, underscoring its critical legitimizing function for what is to follow. Like an isnād, and unlike the rabbinic model on which it based, the list also moves backward in time, beginning with Rav Ashi—traditionally credited with the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud—and culminating with the ultimate prophetic source: in this case, Moses. And finally, like an isnād, and unlike the rabbinic model on which it is based, Maimonides’ list aspires to provide a complete and uninterrupted list of named, individual transmitters. Indeed, much of the point seems to be to compensate for the gaps and the vagueness that one finds in the list in Avot. But if Maimonides’ list appears structurally and functionally very much like an isnād, we need not conclude that it is the result of the conscious adoption of a foreign form. Addressing the question of whether the use of an isnād to validate the legal tradition would have seemed out of place for Jewish writers, Cohen rightly notes: “The fact remains that the Muslim method of full and detailed religious genealogy lent itself to Jewish appropriation without any feeling on the part of the Jews that they were taking over anything new.”3 Cohen’s observation is especially apt for our study of the Jewish embrace of nasab in which we are similarly dealing with a form of appropriation that not only served internal Jewish needs but also appeared to employ a method with authentic Jewish roots in biblical and rabbinic sources. Often it is only the critical perspective of the historian that is able to distinguish the kinds of shifts in form and emphasis that point to new types of cultural influences. Cohen’s characterization of an isnād, and by extension “chain of tradition” works generally, as a form of genealogy is also suggestive, touching on a concern with descent—whether it be biological or spiritual—that has obvious affinities



182 Conclusion

with the material discussed in this work. Indeed, a concern with historical continuity lies at the very heart of both endeavors. Approached from this perspective, the vigorous investment in biblical genealogy can be viewed as part of a broader cultural program of cultural legitimization that drew un-self-consciously on models of validation in the ambient Islamic environment. Anxiety regarding medieval Jewish society’s continuity with its biblical past finds particularly poignant expression in an anonymous Judeo-Arabic work on the merits of the messianic age. Entitled Kitāb al-marāqī ilā rutb yemot ha-mashiaḥ (The Book of Steps Leading to the Station of the Days of the Messiah), the work was written in Yemen sometime in the late Middle Ages.4 It begins with the assertion that “it is generally agreed that the children of Israel are distinguished from the rest of mankind with respect to knowledge . . . prophecy, and the nobility of their ancestry [sharaf al-ubuwwa].”5 Despite these evident distinctions, however, the author notes that in the exile the Jews have been confronted with a challenge that has considerably undermined confidence in their chosen status: Know . . . that when the Jewish nation suffered the difficulties of exile and the travails of the dispersion, its enemies overcame it, saying: “You are not the chosen people of Israel, since that nation disappeared long ago.” We answer them: “Our first argument in response to you is that the Torah in our hands is the greatest witness to the fact that we are the people of Israel, for we inherited it from our ancestors and such an argument cannot be made by any other people. . . .” Our second argument is that their own scripture says: “Ask the people of Israel regarding the signs”6 —and how can one be commanded to ask a nation that has disappeared and whose law has been abrogated?7 The nature of the challenge, revolving as it does around the issue of biblical Israel’s legitimate heirs, recalls the medieval Church’s position according to which the Jews were superseded by Christians as the “true Israel.” Despite this superficial resemblance, however, in Kitāb al-marāqī’s rendition it is not so much a matter of which religious community can legitimately lay claim to the designation of Israel, but whether biblical Israel can still be said to exist at all. It is, in other words, a question that ultimately gets back to the issue of genealogical continuity. Kitāb al-marāqī provides two replies. The first is that the Jews’ possession of the Torah attests to the fact that they are the direct descendants of its original

Conclusion 183

biblical recipients, the Torah’s transmission serving to validate the national claim of historical continuity. Its second rejoinder is to point out that in various places the Qurʾān itself seems to assume the continued existence of biblical Israel, an argument that speaks to the Islamic milieu in which such questions were raised. The evidently unsettling effect that challenges such as these had on medieval Jews helps place the subject matter of this book in perspective. Among other things, it suggests that the emergence of the genealogical traditions considered in preceding chapters ought to be viewed as one of various efforts on the part of medieval Jewish society to link itself to an authentic and legitimizing past. Although Kitāb al-marāqī does not directly appeal to genealogy in its defense of Jewish continuity, one can readily recognize how ancestor lists like those discussed in the chapters above would have answered in their own way the very same challenges that so troubled its author. The importance of biblical ancestry in medieval Jewish society may thus be understood in terms of its authenticating capacity. It may be argued that nesiʾim, and by extension other biblical dynasts as well, provided in their very person a kind of validation of Jewish historical continuity. They constituted, we might say, embodied chains of transmission and served therefore also as conduits of collective memory. In this respect, their existence legitimated medieval Jewish society by authenticating its direct descent from the biblical past in unique and directly personal ways. The ability of nesiʾim to serve such a function is most vividly reflected in the fascination with their genealogies, which, like chains of transmission, documented the present’s derivation from a legitimizing history. Nesiʾim and other biblical dynasts thus not only had the power to refute the accusation that the Jewish people had long ago ceased to exist or matter, they could also provide contact with an increasingly distant and distressingly inaccessible scriptural past.

‫‪Appendix A‬‬

‫‪Halper 462: Transcription and Translation‬‬

‫‪ . . . 1.1‬חמוד מרינו ורבינו ועטרת ראשינו צניף תפארתינו ‪...‬‬ ‫‪2.2‬נשיאינו מלכינו אדונינו נשיאינו שהיה בעודו פאר ועטרת ראשינו הנשיא‬ ‫‪3.3‬הגדול נשיא גלויות כל ישראל ז’ל’ע’ נ’ב’ת’ ו’י’א’ זכאי הנשיא נ’ צ’ בצ’ הח’ עם‬ ‫‪4.4‬שבע כתות שלצדיקים בגן עדן בן יוסף בן זכאי בן עזריה בן שלמה בן‬ ‫‪5.5‬יאשיהו בן זכאי בן יהודה בן דוד בן יהודה בן יצחק בן שלמה בן חסדאי בן‬ ‫‪[6.6‬ב]ראדוי בן בוסתאני בן רב חונא בן כפנא[י] בן חנמר בן מר זוטרא בן חנניה‬ ‫‪7.7‬בן מרימר בן מר זוטרא בן רב חונא בן רב כהנא בן נתן בן רב חונא בן אבימר‬ ‫‪8.8‬בן עקיבה בן נחמיה בן נתן דצוציתא בן ענן בן שפט בן יוחנן בן עקוב‬ ‫‪9.9‬בן יעקב בן חזקיה בן שמעיה בן שכניה בן עובדיה בן ישעיה בן חסדיא בן‬ ‫‪1010‬ברכיה בן חנניה בן משולם בן זרובבל בן שאלתיאל בן פדיה בן יהויכין בן יהויקים‬ ‫‪1111‬בן יאשיהו בן אמון בן מנשה בן יזחקיהו (!) בן אחז בן יותם בן עוזיהו בן אמציה‬ ‫‪1212‬בן יהואש בן אמציה בן אחזיהו בן יורם בן יהושפט בן אסא בן אביה בן רחבעם‬ ‫‪[1313‬ב]ן שלמה בן דוד מלך משיח אלהי יעקב ונעים זמירות ישראל בן ישי בן עובד‬ ‫‪1414‬בן בועז בן שלמון בן נחשון בן עמינדב בן רם בן חצרון בן פרץ בן יהודה בן‬ ‫‪1515‬יעקב בן יצחק בן אברהם בן תרח בן נחור בן שרוג בן רעו בן פלג בן עבר‬ ‫‪1616‬בן שלח בן ארפכשד בן שם בן נח בן למך בן מתושלח בן חנוך בן ירד בן‬ ‫‪1717‬מהללאל בן קינן בן אנוש בן שת בן אדם הראשון עליהם כולם השלום‬ ‫‪1818‬כתבת הדה אלאחרף לאסתערף ואכדם אלחצ’רה אלסאמיה אלשריפה‬ ‫‪1919‬אלאג’ליה אלאוחדיה אלנבויה אלדאוודיה אלג’אלותיה אדאם אללה סעאדתהא‬ ‫ועלי‬ ‫‪2020‬מג’דהא וכבת באלדל אעדא איאמהא וחסדתהא ולא אזאל ען כאפה כדמהא‬ ‫‪2121‬ט’להא אלט’ליל פאן כאדמה אברהם הלוי בר תמים אלרחבי קד ג’א יתשרף‬ ‫‪1‬‬ ‫במלאחצ’[ת]‬ ‫‪2222‬מולאה אלדאוודי והו מחב להדא אלבית אלשריף אלט‪/‬א‪/‬הר אלזכי אללה לא‬ ‫יכלי הדא‬ ‫‪2323‬אלבית אלמלוכי מן רחמתה ושפקתה והדה סאעה סעידה אד זכאני אללה אנט’ר‬ ‫‪ 2424‬זרע דוד אדוננו המלך משיח ייי ואכון כאדמה אין מא כנת ליזכי אללה סיידנא‬ ‫‪2525‬ויזכינא ג’מיע לביאת המשיח בן דוד בעגלא ובזמן קרוב כן יהי רצון אמן‬



186 Appendix A

1. . . . the delightful son of our master and teacher, the crown on our heads and the diadem of our beauty . . . 2. our nasi, our king, our lord, our nasi, who, in his lifetime, was the glory and the crown on our heads, the great 3. nasi, the nasi of the exiles of all Israel, of everlasting memory, “his soul shall dwell in ease and his offspring shall inherit the land” [Psalm 25:13], Zakkay the nasi, may his soul be bound in eternal life 4. with the seven groups of saints in paradise [PT Ḥagiga 2.1], son of Joseph, son of Zakkay, son of ʿAzarya, son of Solomon, son of 5. Josiah, son of Zakkay, son of Judah, son of David, son of Judah, son of Isaac, son of Solomon, son of Ḥisday, son of 6. [Ba]radoy, son of Bustani, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Kafnay, son of Ḥunamar, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Ḥananya, 7. son of Meremar, son of Mar Zuṭra, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Rav Kahana, son of Nathan, son of Rav Ḥuna, son of Avimar, 8. son of ʿAqiva, son of Nehemiah, son of Nathan de-Ṣuṣita, son of ʿAnan, son of Shaphat, son of Yoḥanan, son of ʿAquv, 9. son of Jacob, son of Hezekiah, son of Shemaʿya, son of Shekhanya, son of Obadiah, son of Jeshaiah, son of Hasadiah, son of 10. Berechiah, son of Ḥananya, son of Meshullam, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Pedaiah, son of Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, 11. Son of Josiah, son of Amon, son of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, son of Amaziah, son of 12. Jehoash, son of Amaziah, son of Ahaziah, son of Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, son of Abijah, son of Rehoboam 13. son of Solomon, son of David, the anointed king of the God of Jacob and the sweet singer of Israel, son of Jesse, son of Obed, 14. son of Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadab, son of Ram, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, 15. son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, 16. son of Shelah, son of Arpachshad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of 17. Mahalalel, son of Kenan, son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of the first man—peace upon all of them. 18. I wrote these lines 3 to know and to serve his elevated, noble, 19. sublime, unique, prophetic, Davidic, and exilarchal Excellence—may God perpetuate his success and



Appendix A 187

20. his honor, may He crush with humiliation the enemies in his day and those envious of him, and from his servants may He never remove 21. his protective shield. And his servant, Abraham ha-Levi bar Tamim al-Raḥbī, has had the honor of beholding 22. his master, the descendant of David, being a friend of this noble, pure, and unsullied family—may God in His mercy and in His compassion never 23. never abandon this royal family. This is a joyous occasion on which God has enabled me to see the 24. seed of our lord King David, God’s anointed one. I am his servant wherever I am. May God give our 25. lord and us the merit of the coming of the messiah, the son of David, speedily and in the near future. So may it be His will. Amen.

Appendix B

A Tentative List of Davidic Dynasts Datable between ca. 950 and ca. 1450

The following is a list of Davidic dynasts who can be definitively documented in the Near East, North Africa, and Muslim-dominated Spain between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. It is provided as a preliminary effort at gauging the prevalence of claims of Davidic lineage in medieval Jewish society in the Islamic world. During the roughly five centuries covered, I have identified 107 individuals living in the specified regions. Extracting this kind information from the various types of sources at our disposal poses a number of challenges. While all would probably agree that genealogies contain valuable information, methodological issues arise when it comes to determining how much of it can in fact be used responsibly. Should all the names appearing in an ancestor list be added to our tally, or only a portion of them? And if the latter, how ought one to determine where the critical line between reliable and unreliable information is to be drawn? A related question relates to individuals identified in documentary sources by a personal name only: Should we add some of their unnamed ancestors to our tally, inasmuch as their lineage claim was almost certainly inherited from preceding generations, or should we not? A third type of challenge involves the ambiguous nature of our sources. In certain cases it is difficult to know whether a group of texts refers to a single individual or to several different individuals who all bore the same name. This is a particular problem when individuals are identified without patronymics. For instance, a number of sources mention a nasi or exilarch named David in northern Iraq between the years 1175 and 1215. Do they refer to the same David, or, as several scholars have suggested, to two different Davids? How these and related questions are answered obviously affects one’s total.



190 Appendix B

In light of these considerations, I have opted to err on the side of caution and have adopted the following guidelines so as to arrive at an estimate that, while artificially low, carries the greatest possible degree of confidence. When dealing with genealogical lists, I have restricted myself to counting only the subject of the list (the first name in the sequence) and the generation preceding it. On the basis of the list copied by Abraham al-Raḥbī, I therefore added just two names to my tally: that of the text’s anonymous subject (#4), indicated as [ ? ], and that of his father, Zakkay (#106). Where the sources provide a personal name but no patronymic I have counted only the named subject in my tally, though in reality there is every reason to assume that that individual had a father who would himself have been regarded as a Davidic dynast as well. And if there was reason to suspect overlap in my sources I adopted a similarly cautious course. Thus, in the case of the various texts that refer to a nasi named David in northern Iraq, I added to my list one entry only (#23). I have also omitted from my tally a number of doubtful cases such as the messianic figure Abū Saʿīd alDāʾūdī, whose existence is known exclusively on the basis of the spurious letter discussed in Chapter 4 and is therefore open to some question. An obvious disadvantage resulting from these procedures is that a number of individuals discussed in earlier scholarly literature make no appearance in the following tally. But what this list lacks in inclusiveness is made up for, I believe, in providing a rigorously grounded and reliable baseline for assessing the social presence of the House of David in Jewish communities in the Near East. The skewing effect of my guidelines is, moreover, partially compensated for by the relatively broad period of time that has been taken into consideration. My concern is to convey a sound sense of the overall exposure that Jews in the East would have had to claimants of Davidic lineage. Given that Geniza sources illuminate only certain families of nesiʾim and even then tend to focus on lineal as opposed to collateral kinship connections, there is good reason to imagine that the actual number of Davidic dynasts in the period and regions involved would have been several times greater than the total arrived at here. Even as is, our tally of 107 dynasts significantly revises a previous estimate that counted no more than “twenty-odd” nesiʾim between the tenth and mid-fouteenth centuries.1 The following entries are arranged alphabetically according to given name and include a brief description of the dynast followed by references to relevant primary and secondary literature. 1. [ ? ] Persian nasi who resided in Aden in the 1130s.



Appendix B 191

T-S 20.37, T-S Ar. 48.270, BL Or. 5566 D, fol. 24a + T-S 10J16.8, in S. D. Goitein, “The Jews of Yemen between the Palestinian Gaon, Residing in Fatimid Cairo and the Babylonian Exilarch” (Hebrew), in Ha-temanim: Historiya, sidrei ḥevra, ḥayyei ruaḥ, ed. Menahem BenSasson (Jerusalem, 1983), 57–72. 2. [ ? ] Nasi whose children are listed as the recipients of twenty dirhams on an account of communal expenditures from Fustat for the year 1181. ENA NS 28.15, discussed in Ora Vaza, “Ha-heqdesh ha-yehudi ʿal-pi mismakhei ha-geniza ha-qahirit: Nispaḥ le-meḥqaro shel profesor Moshe Gil” (M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1991), 219. 3. [ ? ] ben Zakkay Unnamed son of Zakkay ben ʿAzarya (#103), mentioned in a letter dated November 29, 1061. CUL Or. 1080 J 78, in Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 3:160–64. 4. [ ? ] ben Zakkay Mid-twelfth-century subject of a genealogy copied by Abraham bar Tamīm al-Raḥbī. Halper 462 (see Appendix A). 5. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Josiah Son of the Damascus nasi Josiah ben Jesse (#69); first half of the thirteenth century. Judah al-Ḥarīzī, Kitāb al-durar: Ve-hu sefer peninei ha-musarim veshivḥei ha-qehalim, ed. and trans. Joshua Blau, Joseph Yahalom, and Paul Fenton (Jerusalem, 2009), 132 (Arabic), 87 (English). 6. Abū Naṣr al-Dāwūdī Great-grandfather of Samawʾal al-Maghribī on his mother’s side; Iraq, late eleventh, early twelfth century. Samawʾal al-Maghribī, Ifḥām al-yahūd: Silencing the Jews, ed. and trans. Moshe Perlmann (New York, 1964), 97 (Arabic), 76 (English). 7. Abū Saʿīd al-Dāʾūdī Subject of a lament composed in the spring of 1046 and written in the hand of Sahlān ben Abraham. T-S 10J22.3, mentioned in Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 595n81.



192 Appendix B

8. Amarya Judah ben David Karaite nasi, son of David ben Ḥisday (#28); Egypt, early thirteenth century. TS 16.67, in Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998), 342–49. 9. Amaziah Joseph ben Solomon One of the four sons of the Karaite nasi in Cairo, Solomon ben David ben Ḥisday (#95); he copied his father’s treatise on the laws of incest, Kitāb al-ʿarayot (or al-Maqāla f ī al-ʿarayot), in the spring of 1249. Colophon to 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 3911, 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057, in Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 2:141–42. 10. Asa Karaite nasi, father of Ṣemaḥ ben Asa (#90); late tenth, early eleventh century. 2 Firk. Heb. B 25, 2 Firk. Heb. B 26, in Paul Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1927–30), 1:71. Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fols. 49v– 50r, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 432–36. 11. ʿAzarya ben Solomon Exilarch and father of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (#18); Baghdad, late tenth, early eleventh century. Mosseri Ia 19, mentioned in Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 112n82. 12. ʿAzarya ibn al-Nāsikha Nasi in Daqūqa, Syria; first half of the thirteenth century. al-Ḥarīzī, Kitāb al-durar, 204–6 (Arabic), 115–16 (English). 13. ʿAzarya ben Yehallelel Copyist; Baghdad, first half of the fourteenth century. T-S13J25.21, in Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (1920–22; reprint, New York, 1970), 2:207– 8; Berlin MS Or. Oct. 256, fol. 180, in Moritz Steinschneider, Verzeichniss der hebraeischen Handschriften, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1878–97), 1:74.



Appendix B 193

14. Badīʿ ibn Nafīs Karaite nasi who settled in Cairo with other members of his family; middle of the fourteenth century. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa al-thāmina, ed. Muḥammad Sayyid Jād al-Ḥaqq, 5 vols. (Cairo, 1966–67), 4:396. 15. Boaz ben Jehoshaphat Karaite nasi; Jerusalem, first half of the tenth century. T-S 13J11.3, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:213. 16. Boaz ben Solomon ben David ben Ḥisday One of the four sons of the Karaite nasi Solomon ben David ben Ḥisday (#95); Cairo, middle of the thirteenth century. 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057, discussed in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:141. 17. Daniel ben David Father of David ben Daniel (#26); Mosul, middle of the thirteenth century. S. Z. H. Halberstam, “Mikhtav rabi David rosh ha-gola,” in Ginzei Nistarot, ed. Joseph I. Kobak, 3 (1871–72), 117–24. 18. Daniel ben ʿAzarya Nasi from Iraq who moved to Palestine where he assumed the headship of the Palestinian yeshiva; died in August 1062. S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), in Ha-yishuv be-Ereṣ Yisraʾel be-reshit ha-islam uvi-tequfat ha-ṣalbanim le-or kitvei ha-geniza, ed. Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1980), 132–87; Mark R. Cohen, “New Light on the Conflict over the Palestinian Gaonate, 1038–1042, and on Daniel b. ʿAzarya: A Pair of Letters to the Nagid of Qayrawan,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 1 (1976), 1–40; Gil, History of Palestine, 719–39. 19. Daniel ben Ḥisday Twelfth-century exilarch in Baghdad; died ca. 1175. Mann, Texts and Studies, 228–43; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 435–37. 20. Muwaffaq al-Dawla Dānīyāl ibn Dāwūd Davidic dynast whose genealogy was copied by Ibn al-Fuwaṭī in the city of Tabrīz. Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīṣ, 5:607.



194 Appendix B

21. David Exilarch at the end of the eleventh, beginning of the twelfth century; father of the exilarch Ḥisday ben David (#49). Simḥa Assaf, “Pesuqei di-verakha le-rosh ha-gola Ḥisday ben David,” Ginzei Kedem 4 (1930), 63–64. 22. David Nasi in Egypt in the second half of the twelfth century whose name appears on three payment orders. T-S Ar. 52.248, in S. D. Goitein, “Additions to ‘Ha-Rav,’ Tarbiẓ 45 (1976), 64–75” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 46 (1977), 153; T-S AS 146.5, in Vaza, “Ha-heqdesh ha-yehudi,” 215; T-S NS 225.24, mentioned in Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1976), 101, 102n108. 23. David One of two contenders for the office of exilarch after the death of Daniel ben Ḥisday in ca. 1175 and perhaps the person referred to as “David the exilarch” and “David, the head of the diasporas of all Israel” in sources from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. L. Grünhut, Die Rundreise des R. Petachjah aus Regensburg (Jerusalem and Frankfurt am Main, 1905), 5; Avraham David, “Sibbuv rabi Petaḥya me-Regensburg be-nusaḥ ḥadash,” Qobeṣ ʿal yad, n.s. 13 [23] (1996), 259; Judah ben Solomon al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, ed. Y. Toporovsky (Tel Aviv, 1952), 365; BL Or. 2598, fol. 162, in Moshe Gil, Bemalkhut Yishmaʿel bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997), 2:243–44. 24. Abū Saʿīd David ben Boaz Karaite author who wrote commentaries on the Pentateuch and Ecclesiastes and composed a work on the principles of religion; Jerusalem, second half of the tenth century. Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 146–47; Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:132–34. 25. David ben Daniel Son of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (#18), exilarch, and head of the Jews of Egypt; second half of the eleventh century.



Appendix B 195

Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of the Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), 178–212; Gil, History of Palestine, 750–74. 26. David ben Daniel Nasi in Mosul who wrote a letter to Solomon ben Samuel Petit in April 1288 threatening him with excommunication for his efforts to ban the Guide for the Perplexed. Halberstam, “Mikhtav rabi David rosh ha-gola.” 27. David ben Hezekiah Poet and son of the exilarch Hezekiah ben David (#43); Palestine, ­middle of the eleventh century. BL Or. 5546 + ENA NS 13.1, T-S 6J9.2, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:8–10; T-S 13J9.1, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:183–86; ENA 2592.6–7, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:100; T-S 18J2.5, mentioned in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 434; Tova Beeri, “Between Spain and the East: The Poetic Works of David ben ha-Nassi,” in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, 2 vols., ed. Judit Taragona Borrás and Angel Sáenz-Badillos (Leiden, 1999), 379–83; Tova Beeri, “Piyyuṭ tokhaḥa le-David ha-nasi,” Revue Européenne des Etudes Hébraïques 9 (2003), 89–102; Gil, History of Palestine, 542–45. 28. David ben Ḥisday Karaite nasi during the first half of the twelfth century; author of a treatise on the unity of God. T-S 20.179, line 18, in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:153–55. 29. David ben Hodaya Signatory of the ban imposed on Samuel of Schlettstadt; Iraq, late fourteenth century. Naḥman Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim (Vienna, 1864), 110. 30. David ben Josiah Karaite nasi; Fustat, middle of the eleventh century. T-S 13J11.3, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:213. 31. David ben Ṣemaḥ Karaite nasi; Fustat, first half of the eleventh century. T-S 16.50, T-S 18J5.10 + T-S 10J27.6, Mosseri VII 90.1, Mosseri Ia 2, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 285–93, 294–98, 311–18.



196 Appendix B

32. David ben Solomon One of the four sons of the Karaite nasi Solomon ben David ben Ḥisday (#95); Cairo, middle of the thirteenth century. 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057, discussed in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:141. 33. David ben Solomon Father of Samuel ben David (#86); thirteenth century. Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian ­Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1886– 1906), 1:863. 34. Abī Sulaymān David ben Solomon Nasi in Jām; died in 1189. Eugen Ludwig Rapp, “Die persich-hebräischen Inschiften Afghanestans aus dem 11. bis 13. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch der Vereinigung “Freunde der Universität Mainz” 1971 (20), 94–95. 35. Dāwūd ibn ʿAnan Father of Nafīs ibn Dāwūd (#76); Tabrīz, early fourteenth century. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina, 4:396. 36. Dāwūd ibn Zakkay Father of Muwaffaq al-Dawla Dānīyāl ibn Dāwūd (#20). Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīṣ, 5:607 37. Faraj Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī Father of Ibrāhīm ibn Faraj Allāh (#56); Cairo, middle of the fourteenth century. Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-mawāʿiẓ waʾl-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ waʾl-āthār (Bulaq, 1853–54), 2:326. 38. Fatḥ Allāh ibn Muʿtaṣim Son of Muʿtaṣim ibn Nafīs (#75) and grandson of Nafīs ibn Dāwūd (#76); Tabrīz, late fourteenth century. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina, 4:396. 39. Haggai Official of the Baghdad yeshiva during the last quarter of the twelfth century. Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 39 (Hebrew), 39 (English).



Appendix B 197

40. Ḥanan Communal leader in Yemen; second half of the twelfth century. Adler, Itinerary, 47 (Hebrew), 48 (English). 41. Fakhr al-Dawla Hārūn ibn Yūsuf ibn Dānīyāl Nasi whose genealogy was copied by Ibn al-Fuwaṭī in Tabrīz. ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn Aḥmad Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīṣ majmaʿ al-ādāb fī muʿjam al-alqāb, ed. Muṣṭafā Jawād, 6 vols. (Damascus, 1962–67), 3:220. 42. Heman ben Ḥanamel Nasi whose name appears on a seal engraved with the image of a lion; Iraq, tenth century. Shaul Shaked, “Jewish and Christian Seals of the Sassanid Period,” in Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, ed. Miriam Rosen-Ayalon (Jerusalem, 1977), 25–26, 31; Shaked, “Epigraphica Judaeo-Iranica,” in Studies in Judaism and Islam: Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday by His Students, Colleagues, and Friends, ed. Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben-Ami, and Norman A. Stillman (Jerusalem, 1981), 67. 43. Hezekiah ben David Exilarch during the first half of the eleventh century; died ca. 1060. P. Heid. Hebr. 10r (unpublished); T-S 13J9.1, T-S Misc. 35.40, JTS Schechter 4, ENA NS 9.15, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:183–91, 197–202, 223–28; Dov Jarden, Dīwān Shemuʾel ha-nagid: Ben Tehilim (Jerusalem, 1966), 134. 44. Hezekiah ben David Exilarch during the late eleventh century. T-S 10J24.1, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:370–75. 45. Hezekiah ben Jesse Father of Jesse ben Hezekiah (#62); Damascus, first half of the thirteenth century. Moses ben Maimon, Qoveṣ teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. Lichtenberg (Leipzig, 1859), pt. 3, 21–22. 46. Hezekiah ben Sar Shalom A son of the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas (#88); Baghdad, first half of the fourteenth century.



198 Appendix B

Ḥayyim Schirmann, Shirim ḥadashim min ha-geniza (Jerusalem, 1965), 140n6; Adolf Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), 2:248. 47. Hezekiah ben Solomon Karaite nasi; Jerusalem and Fustat, middle of the eleventh century. T-S 13J36.6, T-S 12.217, Gottheil-Worrell 43, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:61– 64, 158, 359–62; T-S 16.50, T-S 20.42, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 285–93, 298–300. 48. Ḥisday Thirteenth-century nasi who arrived in Ḥamā where he fell into difficult financial circumstances. T-S 12.352, T-S 13J21.8, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:252–53, 258–61; T-S 10J16.3, mentioned in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 442. 49. Ḥisday ben David Early twelfth-century exilarch and father of the exilarch Daniel ben Ḥisday (#19). ENA 4020.15, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:208; Assaf, “Pesuqei di-verakha.” 50. Ḥisday ben Hezekiah Karaite nasi; Fustat, early twelfth century. Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 42, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 470–78; T-S 20.179, in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:153–55. 51. Ḥiyya al-Dāʾūdī Davidic dynast in Spain between the middle of the eleventh and the middle of the twelfth century. Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) (Philadelphia, 1967), 62 (English), 45 (Hebrew). 52. Hodaya Nephew of the exilarch David (#23); Mosul, early thirteenth century. al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, 365. 53. Hodaya ben Jesse Nasi in Alexandria in the first half of the thirteenth century. Abraham ben Moses, Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, ed. A. H. Freimann and S. D. Goitein (Jerusalem, 1938), 13–26; T-S 20.15,



Appendix B 199

in Mann, Texts and Studies, 1:408–9; T-S 10J13.14, in Goitein, “Documents on Abraham Maimonides and His Pietistic Circle” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 33 (1963), 185–86; T-S NS J29, in Miriam Frenkel, Ha-ohavim veha-nedivim: ʿIlit manhiga be-qerev yehudei Aleksandriya bi-mei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 603–7. 54. Hodaya ben Solomon Nasi known exclusively on the basis of a small fragment containing little more than his name. ENA 4011.25 (unpublished). 55. Hodaya ben Uzziah Father of David ben Hodaya (#29), one of the signatories of the ban on Samuel of Schlettstadt. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110. 56. Ibrāhīm ibn Faraj Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī Karaite judge; Cairo, late fourteenth, early fifteenth century. al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, 2:326. 57. Jedidiah Father of Zakkay ben Jedidiah (#105); first half of the eleventh century. T-S 13J15.14, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:83–84. 58. Jedidiah Karaite nasi in Egypt whose name appears on a marriage document dated 1081. BL Or. 5532, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 436–41. 59. Jedidiah ben Jesse Signatory of the ban on Samuel of Schlettstadt; Iraq, second half of the fourteenth century. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110. 60. Jehoshaphat ben Daniel Son of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (#18); Palestine, second half of the eleventh century. BL Or. 5557 K.8, in Ezra Fleischer, “New Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), Shalem 1 (1974), 73. 61. Jesse Father of Solomon ben Jesse (#98); first half of the fourteenth century.

200 Appendix B

Samuel Poznanski, Babylonische Geonim im nachgäonische Zeitalter nach handschriftlichen und gedrucket Quellen (Berlin, 1914), 125. 62. Jesse ben Hezekiah Communal leader in Damascus and signatory of the letter of excommunication against Solomon ben Samuel Petit in 1289. Qoveṣ teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. Lichtenberg, pt. 3, 21–22; T-S 16.377, discussed in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:359. 63. Jesse ben Solomon Father of Solomon ben Jesse (#97); Mosul, late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 441. 64. Jesse ben Solomon Son of Solomon ben Jesse (#97); Egypt, first half of the thirteenth century. T-S 12.654, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:261–64. 65. Jesse ben Solomon Father of Jedidiah ben Jesse (#59); first half of the fourteenth century. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110. 66. Joseph ben Zedekiah Nasi in Aleppo; second half of the fifteenth century. Adolf Poznanski, Schiloh: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Messiaslehre (Leipzig, 1904), 162. 67. Josiah Father of Judah ben Josiah (#73); Egypt, middle of the twelfth century. Joseph ben Isaac Sambari, Sefer divrei Yosef, ed. Shimon Shtober (Jerusalem, 1994), 82, 141, 219; Moses ben Maimon, Teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. Joshua Blau, 4 vols. (Jerusalem, 1957–86), 2:655. 68. Josiah ben Ḥiyya Davidic dynast in Spain. Cohen, Book of Tradition, 133. 69. Josiah ben Jesse One of the patrons to whom al-Ḥarīzī dedicated his Taḥkemoni; Damascus, first half of the thirteenth century. T-S K6.152, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:210; al-Ḥarīzī, Kitāb al-durar, 130–32; al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, 24–28, 365.



Appendix B 201

70. Josiah ben Sar Shalom One of the sons of the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas (#88); Baghdad, first half of the fourteenth century. T-S 13J10.11, T-S 12.728, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:208, 380; Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. 71. Abū al-Ḥasan Josiah ben Solomon Karaite nasi during the middle of the eleventh century in Jerusalem and later in Fustat. T-S AS 145.94r + T-S NS 324.24v, in Elinoar Bareket, Yehudei Miṣrayim, 1007–1055: ʿAl pi “arkhiyon ha-teʿudot” shel Efrayim ben Shemarya (Jerusalem, 1995), 20–22; Bodl. MS Heb. b 11, fol. 1, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:255–57; Mosseri VII 43, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:453 (where Josiah is assumed to be a Rabbanite; cf. Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:136, where he is taken to be a Karaite). 72. Judah ben Josiah Nasi in Egypt during the second half of the twelfth century. Sambari, Sefer divrei Yosef, 82, 141, 219; Moses ben Maimon, Teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. Blau 2:655. 73. Judah ben Nehoray Descendant of Judah ha-Nasi described by Petaḥya of Regensburg; Sepphoris, late twelfth century. Grünhut, Rundreise, 29; David, “Sibbuv,” 268. 74. Melchizedek ben Sar Shalom One of the sons of the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas (#88); Iraq, first half of the fourteenth century. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. 75. Muʿtaṣim ibn Nafīs Davidic dynast; Tabrīz and Cairo, middle of the fourteenth century. Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāmina, 4:396. 76. Nafīs ibn Dāwūd Physician from Tabrīz who settled in Egypt, where he converted to Islam; middle of the fourteenth century. Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāmina, 4:396. 77. Nehemiah Nasi in Iraq; late twelfth, early thirteenth century.

202 Appendix B

Eleazar ben Jacob ha-Bavli, Diwan: Qoveṣ shirei El ʿazar ben Ya ʿaqov ha-bavli, ed. Ḥayim Brody (Jerusalem, 1935), 14, 16. 78. Nehemiah ben Solomon ben Heman Liturgical poet; Iraq, tenth century. Naowiya Katsumata, The Liturgical Poetry of Nehemiah ben Shelomoh ben Heiman ha-Nasi: A Critical Edition (Leiden, 2002), 6–8. 79. Nehoray Doctor in Sepphoris who claimed descent from Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi; late twelfth century. Grünhut, Rundreise, 29; David, “Sibbuv,” 268. 80. Obadiah ben Solomon One of the four sons of the Karaite nasi Solomon ben David ben Hisday (#95); Cairo, middle of the thirteenth century. 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057, discussed in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:141. 81. Phineas ben Josiah Father of the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas (#88); late thirteenth, early fourteenth century. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. 82. Phineas ben Sar Shalom One of the sons of the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas (#88); Iraq, first half of the fourteenth century. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. 83. Salmon Communal leader in Yemen; second half of the twelfth century. Adler, Itinerary, 47 (Hebrew), 48 (English). 84. Samuel One of two contenders for the office of exilarch after the death of Daniel ben Ḥisday in ca. 1175. Grünhut, Rundreise, 5; David, “Sibbuv,” 259. 85. Samuel ben Daniel Son of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (#18); in 1074 he held the rank of “third” in the Palestinian yeshiva. Bodl. MS Heb. d 75, fol. 11, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:221 (where the date should be corrected to 1074).



Appendix B 203

86. Samuel ben David ben Solomon Scion of a family of geʾonim of the Palestinian yeshiva that traced its ancestry back to Shephatiah, the son of King David; thirteenth century. Neubauer, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts, 1:863. 87. Sar Shalom Karaite nasi described by Moses ben Samuel of Safed; Cairo, second half of the fourteenth century. Berlin Or. Heb. Oct. 517, fol. 64b, in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:254. 88. Sar Shalom ben Phineas Exilarch in Baghdad; first half of the fourteenth century. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248; Halper 185, described in Benzion Halper, Descriptive Catalogue of Genizah Fragments in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1924), 92; T-S 13J10.11, T-S 12.728, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:208, 380; Schirmann, Shirim ḥadashim, 142–43. 89. Ṣedaqa Karaite nasi whose ancestor list is described by Obadiah of Bertinoro; Cairo, second half of the fifteenth century. Menachem Emanuele Hartom and Avraham David , Me-Iṭaliya liYerushalayim: Iggerotav shel rabi ʿOvadya mi-Berṭinoro me-Ereṣ Yisraʾel (Ramat Gan, 1997), 56. 90. Ṣemaḥ ben Asa Karaite nasi; Fustat, first half of the eleventh century. Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 44, Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fol. 49v–50r, in ­Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 394–97, 432–36; T-S NS 277.212, a dirge on Ṣemaḥ’s death, in Tova Beeri, “Two Historical Dirges on the Assasination of Abu Saʿd al-Tustari” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 69 (1999), 141–44. 91. Solomon Father of Hodaya ben Solomon (#54). ENA 4011.25 (unpublished). 92. Solomon Nasi in Jām and father of Abī Sulaymān David ben Solomon (#34); first half of the twelfth century. Rapp, “Die persich-hebräischen Inschiften,” 94–95.

204 Appendix B

93. Solomon Nasi involved in the appointment of Sar Shalom ben Phineas as exilarch; Baghdad, first half of the fourteenth century. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. 94. Solomon ben David ben Boaz Karait nasi; Jerualem, middle of the eleventh century. Colophon to 2 Firk. Heb. B 225, in Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, 1:67. 95. Solomon ben David ben Ḥisday Karaite nasi; Cairo, late twelfth, early thirteenth century. MS Leiden Or. 4790, fol. 111b, in Simcha Pinsker, Liqqutei qadmoniyot: Le-qorot dat benei miqra veha-liṭeraṭur shelahem (Vienna, 1860), Appendix, 53; T-S 20.179, in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:153–55. 96. Solomon ben Heman Father of the liturgical poet Nehemiah ben Solomon ben Heman (#78); Iraq, tenth century. Katsumata, Liturgical Poetry, 6–8. 97. Solomon ben Jesse Nasi from Mosul who settled in Egypt with various members of his family; first half of the thirteenth century. Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 24, T-S 12.352, T-S 20.128, T-S 13J21.8, T-S 12.654, T-S 16.36, T-S 13J21.24, T-S 20.175, T-S 18J4.13, in Gil, Bemalkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:246–80; T-S AS 145.42, described in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 442; T-S 6J1.28, T-S 6J4.15, T-S 6J4.27, T-S 8J10.15, T-S 10J22.8, T-S 13J4.7, West. Coll. Misc. 102, described in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:209–10. 98. Solomon ben Jesse Scribe who copied a Torah scroll in 1388. Poznanski, Babylonische Geonim, 125. 99. Solomon ben Josiah Exilarch in the middle of the tenth century. Bodl. MS Heb. f 34, fol. 44, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:50. 100. Solomon Jedidiah Karaite nasi; first half of the thirteenth century. 2 Firk. Heb. A 1321, cited in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 150, 151.



Appendix B 205

101. Yehallelel Father of the copyist ʿAzarya ben Yehallelel (#13); Iraq, middle of the fourteenth century. T-S13J25.21, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:207–8; Berlin MS Or. Oct. 256, fol. 180, in Steinschneider, Verzeichniss der hebraeischen Handschriften, 1:74. 102. Yūsuf ibn Dānīyāl Father of Fakhr al-Dawla Hārūn ibn Yūsuf ibn Dānīyāl (#41), whose genealogy was copied by Ibn al-Fuwaṭī in Tabrīz. Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīṣ, 3:220. 103. Zakkay ben ʿAzarya Brother of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (#18). Bodl. MS Heb. e 101, fol. 18, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:208; T-S 10J25.2, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:695; CUL Or. 1080 J 78, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:160–64; T-S NS 338.94, mentioned in Gil, History of Palestine, 721n158. 104. Zakkay ben Bustanay Official in the Baghdad yeshiva; Baghdad, second half of the twelfth century. Adler, Itinerary, 39 (Hebrew), 39 (English). 105. Zakkay ben Jedidiah Nasi in the second half of the eleventh century. T-S 13J15.14, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:83–84. 106. Zakkay ben Joseph Father of the Davidic dynast (#4) whose genealogy was copied by Abraham ibn al-Raḥbī; middle of the twelfth century. Halper 462 (see Appendix A). 107. Zedekiah Father of Joseph ben Zedekiah (#66); Aleppo, early fifteenth century. Poznanski, Schiloh, 162.

Abbreviations

Antonin Antonin Collection (St. Petersburg) Ar. Arabic Additional Series AS BL British Library Bodl. Bodleian Library (Oxford) CUL Cambridge University Library (Cambridge) David Kaufmann Collection (Budapest) DK Elkan Nathan Adler Collection (New York) ENA 2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d ed., ed. P. Bearman, Th. BianEI quis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006) Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2d ed., ed. Michael Berenbaum and EJ 2 Fred Skolnik (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007) Firkovich Collections (St. Petersburg) Firk. Gottheil-Worrell Geniza documents in the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), numbered according to Richard J. H. Gottheil and William H. Worrell, Fragments from the Cairo Genizah in the Freer Collection (New York: Macmillan, 1927). Geniza documents in the library of the Center for AdHalper vanced Judaic Studies (Philadelphia), formerly Dropsie College, numbered according to Benzion Halper, Descriptive Catalogue of Genizah Fragments in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1924). Heb. Hebrew JTS Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York) Or. Oriental Mosseri Jacques Mosseri Collection (Cambridge) T-S Taylor-Schechter Collection (Cambridge) Westminster College (Cambridge) West. Coll.

Notes

Preface 1. For the text see Adolf Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), 2:89–110; the passage cited above appears on 104. See also Neubauer’s introduction, x­­–xi. An additional section of the chronicle was published in Alexander Marx, “Sur le ‘Kitab al-Ta’rikh’ de Saadia,” Revue des études juives 88 (1929), 299–301. For arguments in support of Saʿadya Gaʾon’s authorship of the work, see Henry Malter, Saadiah Gaon: His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1921), 172–73, 353–54; Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2d rev. ed., 18 vols. (New York and Philadelphia, 1952–83), 6:430n74. An entry for a Kitāb al-tawārīkh by Saʿadya appears in a thirteenth-century booklist copied by the judge Elijah ben Solomon. See T-S K3.25–26 in Nehemya Allony, Ha-sifriya ha-yehudit bi-mei ha-benayim: Reshimot sefarim mi-genizat Qahir, ed. Miriam Frenkel and Haggai Ben-Shammai with Moshe Sokolow (Jerusalem, 2006), 55, lines 32–33. 2. See Yitzhak Avishur, ed., Ha-targum ha-qadum li-neviʾim rishonim be-ʿaravit yehudit (Jerusalem, 1995), 247. According to the colophon, 9–10, the manuscript of the translation was copied in 1354. On this edition, see Haggai Ben-Shammai, “A Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Translation of the Former Prophets” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 67.2 (1998), 261–82. 3. See Joseph Derenbourg, ed., Oeuvres complètes de R. Saadia ben Iosef al-Fayyoûmî. Volume premier: Version arabe du Pentateuque (Paris, 1893), 260. In light of the prevailing assumption that Kitāb al-taʾrīkh was itself written by Saʿadya (see note 1, above), the fact that the text avoids this more literal formulation seems all the more deliberate. 4. See Bustān al-ʿuqūl: Gan ha-sekhalim, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem, 1954), 31–32 (Arabic); The Bustān al-Uḳūl, ed. and trans. David Levine (New York, 1908), 29–30 (English). 5. On this work, see Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, N.J., 2008), 52–53; the passage cited appears on 57–58. 6. Bustān al-ʿuqūl, ed. Kafiḥ, 32 (Arabic); Bustān al-Uḳūl, ed. Levine, 30 (English). 7. Consider, for example, the view cited by Judah Halevi, according to which “the roots and principles of all sciences were handed down from us first to the Chaldeans, then to the



210 Notes to Pages xiv–1 Persians and the Medes, then to Greece, and finally to the Romans” (Kuzari 2:66). See Judah Halevi, Kitāb al-radd waʾl-dalīl fī al-dīn al-dhalīl (al-Kitāb al-Khazarī), ed. David Z. Baneth and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem, 1977), 79 (Arabic); Judah Halevi, The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld (London, 1905), 124 (English). Abraham Maimonides employs a similar argument when urging his readers to embrace some of the practices of the Sufi mystics of his day: “The latter,” he insists, “imitate the prophets of Israel and walk in their footsteps.” See Abraham Maimonides, The High Ways to Perfection of Abraham Maimonides, ed. and trans. Samuel Rosenblatt, 2 vols. (New York and Baltimore, 1927–38), 2:320. And in the same vein, Judah al-Ḥarīzī claims that the Arabic maqamāt of al-Ḥarīrī are based on literary forms and techniques that were stolen from the Hebrew Bible. See Judah ben Solomon al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, ed. Y. Toporovsky (Tel Aviv, 1952), 11. For an analysis of such claims, see Abraham Melamed, Raqaḥot veṭabaḥot: Ha-mitos ʿal meqor ha-ḥokhmot (Jerusalem and Haifa, 2010), 94–120. 8. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 2:19. 9. See S. D. Goitein, “On Jewish-Arab Symbiosis” (Hebrew), Molad 2 (1949), 259– 66; Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages, 3d ed. (New York, 1974), 127–40. On this concept in Goitein’s work, see Steven Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, 1995), 9; Gideon Libson, “Hidden Worlds and Open Shutters: S. D. Goitein Between Judaism and Islam,” in The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians, ed. David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 163–98.

Introduction 1. A critical edition of Benjamin’s travel account with English translation can be found in Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907). See also A. Asher, The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, 2 vols. (London and Berlin, 1840–41). For Petaḥya’s report see L. Grünhut, Die Rundreise des R. Petachjah aus Regensburg (Jerusalem and Frankfurt am Main, 1905). Another version, based on a manuscript in the University of Warsaw library that includes material not found in Grünhut’s edition, was published in Avraham David, “Sibbuv rabi Petaḥya me-Regensburg be-nusaḥ ḥadash,” Qobeṣ ʿal yad, n.s. 13 [23] (1996), 254–69. For an English translation see Abraham Benisch, Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon (London, 1856), reprinted in Elkan Nathan Adler, ed., Jewish Travellers (London, 1930), 64–91. The editorializing comments embedded in the narrative and the references to Petaḥya in the third person indicate that the extant text of the itinerary was not composed by Petaḥya himself but rather by someone who heard a description of his travels after his return to Bohemia. On the motives that may have inspired these as well as other twelfthcentury Jewish travelers see David, “Sibbuv,” 252–53; Joshua Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988), 169–76; and Elchanan Reiner, “ʿAliya ve-ʿaliya la-regel le-Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 1099–1517” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of



Notes to Pages 1–4 211

Jerusalem, 1988), 23–39. See also the discussion in Josef Meri, The Cult of the Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford, 2002), 214–50. 2. On Benjamin’s background see Michael Signer, “Introduction,” in The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages (Malibu, 1983), 15–19. 3. On Isaac see Ephraim E. Urbach, Baʿalei ha-tosafot: Toledotehem, ḥibburehem, shiṭatam, 4th ed., 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1980), 1:215–23. 4. For medieval descriptions of Baghdad see the material collected in Guy Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate: From Contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1900). 5. Adler, Itinerary, 35–38 (Hebrew), 35–38 (English). On the phrase ish ḥasid, used twice by Benjamin to describe the Abbasid caliph, see the discussion in Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, The Lisbon Massacre of 1506 and the Royal Image in the Shebet Yehudah (Cincinnati, 1976), 2–3, 42–46. 6. Adler, Itinerary, 38 (Hebrew), 38 (English). 7. Grünhut, Rundreise, 6–10, 21–25; David, “Sibbuv,” 258–60, 264–66. 8. On Jewish neighborhoods in medieval Baghdad, see Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 492–96. 9. Grünhut, Rundreise, 8; David, “Sibbuv,” 258–59. 10. Thus in David, “Sibbuv,” 260. Cf. Grünhut, Rundreise, 10. On the use of the term galut in medieval sources to describe the status of Jews in Muslim lands, see Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J., 1994), 192–94; Mark R. Cohen, “Sociability and the Concept of Galut in Jewish-Muslim Relations in the Middle Ages,” in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Inter­ action: Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner, ed. Benjamin H. Harry, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren (Leiden, 2000), 44–48. For a broad discussion of the historical development of the concept, see Yitzhak Baer, Galut (New York, 1947). 11. Grünhut, Rundreise, 8; David, “Sibbuv,” 258–59. 12. Thus in Grünhut, Rundreise, 22. Cf. David, “Sibbuv,” 265. 13. Thus in Grünhut, Rundreise, 10. Cf. David, “Sibbuv,” 260. 14. On the history of the office before the advent of Islam, see Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vols. (Leiden, 1965–70), 1:50–57, 97–112; 2:92–125; 3:41–94; 4:73–124; 5:45–59, 95–105, 124–27, 248–59; Moshe Beer, Rashut ha-gola be-Bavel bi-mei ha-Mishna veha-Talmud (Tel Aviv, 1976), 248–59; Isaiah Gafni, Yahadut Bavel umosedoteha (Jerusalem, 1987), 53–77; Isaiah Gafni, Yehudei Bavel bi-tequfat ha-Talmud: Ḥayyei ha-ḥevra veha-ruaḥ (Jerusalem, 1990), 94–104. For a recent revisionist history of the exilarchate in the rabbinic period, see Geoffrey Herman, “Rashut ha-gola be-Bavel bi-tequfat ha-Talmud” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2005). 15. Two versions of Nathan’s text are extant: portions of the Judeo-Arabic original and a complete medieval Hebrew translation. For the Hebrew text, see Adolf Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), 2:78– 88. For fragments of the Judeo-Arabic original, see Israel Friedlaender, “The Arabic Original of the Report of R. Nathan Hababli,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 17 (1905), 747–61; Menahem Ben-Sasson, “The Structure, Goals, and Content of the Story of Nathan



212 Notes to Pages 4–6 Ha-Babli” (Hebrew), in Tarbut ve-ḥevra bi-mei ha-benayim: Qoveṣ maʾamarim le-zikhro shel Ḥayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed. Menahem Ben-Sasson, Robert Bonfil, and Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1989), 181–95 (see 142–62 for an analysis of the motives underlying Nathan’s depiction of the Iraqi authorities). 16. For an English translation of this passage see Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 171–75. 17. On the authority exercised by exilarchs, see Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 71–75; for the popular view that they received formal letters of appointment from the Muslim authorities comparable to those issued to the Katholikos, the head the of the Nestorian Christian community, see 68–69 as well as Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 84–85, and Avraham Grossman, Rashut ha-gola be-Bavel bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim (Jerusalem, 1984), 45–46. See, however, the reservations concerning this in Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, N.Y., 2008), 68–69. For one such letter of appointment for a Katholikos, dating from the middle of the twelfth century, see Lawrence I. Conrad, “A Nestorian Diploma of Investiture from the Taḏkira of Ibn Ḥamdūn: The Text and Its Significance,” in Studia Arabica et Islamica: Festschrift for Iḥsān ʿAbbās on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Wadād al-Qādī (Beirut, 1981), 83–104. 18. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot sanhedrin 4:13. 19. On Daniel ben Ḥisday, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 435–37. For reasons that remain unclear, all versions of Petaḥya’s travel account give Daniel’s father’s name as Solomon instead of Ḥisday. See Grünhut, Rundreis, 9, 28; David, “Sibbuv,” 259, 266. 20. In the Qurʾā n David’s name is spelled Dāwūd, a form that one occasionally finds in medieval Judeo-Arabic sources. Much more common, however, is a variant written dalet, alef, vav, dalet, used here by Benjamin and for which several different English transcriptions exist in the scholarly literature. Here and elsewhere I have preserved this form when it appears in the sources, rendering it according to the transliteration preferred by Goitein. For the spelling of the Arabic name with hamza in place of wāw in the Middle Ages, see EI 2, s.v. “Dāwūd” (Rudy Paret). 21. The interpretation of Genesis 49:10 as describing the perpetuation of Davidic rule in the reign of the exilarchs follows the normative rabbinic understanding of this verse, to be discussed at greater length in Chapter 1. Benjamin thus appears to make the remarkable assertion that Muḥammad was both aware of the rabbinic tradition and took pains to ensure its safeguarding. While this seems an astonishing claim, it is consistent with Benjamin’s earlier (and no more plausible) characterization of the caliph as both able to read and write Hebrew and knowledgeable in matters of Jewish law. 22. According to Ibn Ḥazm the debate took place in the year 1013. See ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad Ibn Ḥazm, al-Fiṣal f ī al-milal waʾl-ahwāʾ waʾl-niḥal (Cairo, 1957), 1:118. On this episode see Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Ḥazm (Leiden, 1996), 106; Ross Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain (Princeton, N.J., 2002), 72–75. On Ibn Ḥazm’s likely reliance on Christian polemical materials in making this argument, see Hava LazarusYafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, N.J., 1992), 98.



Notes to Pages 6–10 213

23. On the argument from Jewish circumstances, see Robert Chazan, Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge, 2004), 181–214. 24. On the connections between Jewish-Christian polemics and twelfth-century travel literature, see Michael A. Signer, “The Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Exegetical and Polemical Literature,” in The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, ed. Lawrence Hoffman (Notre Dame, Ind., 1986), 223; Signer, “Introduction,” 31. 25. Frank Talmage, Sefer ha-berit u-vikkuḥei Radaq ʿim ha-naṣrut (Jerusalem, 1974), 25. The translation is taken from Chazan, Fashioning Jewish Identity, 184. Like Benjamin of Tudela, Joseph too was exposed to influences emanating from both Islamic Spain and Latin Christendom. Born and educated in al-Andalus, he settled in Narbonne in about the year 1150, at the age of forty-five. 26. While from the time of al-Manṣūr (754–75) the Abbasid caliphs justified their rule on the basis of kinship ties to Muḥammad, even by their own reckoning they were not direct descendants of the Prophet but rather of his uncle, ʿAbbās, whence the name of the dynasty. On the evolution of their ancestral claim to authority, and their efforts to prove its superiority to that put forward by their ʿAlid rivals, who claimed descent from Muḥammad through his daughter Fāṭima, see Moshe Sharon, Black Banners from the East: The Establishment of the ʿAbbāsid State, Incubation of a Revolt (Jerusalem, 1983), 82–93. 27. On the importance of nasab in Islamic society in the Middle Ages, see EI 2, s.v. “Nasab” (Franz Rosenthal); Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, N.J., 1980), 98–104; Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997), 93–142. 28. See Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley, 1977), 134–57. 29. See, e.g., David Dumville, “Kingship, Genealogies and Regnal Lists,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Woods (Leeds, 1977), 72–104; John Freed, “The Counts of Falkenstein: Noble Self-Consciousness in Twelfth-Century Germany,” Trans­ actions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 74.6 (1984), 1–70. For a general introduction to medieval genealogical literature, see Leopold Genicot, Les Généalogies (Turnhout, 1975). 30. See, for example, Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern, trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols. (London, 1964), 1:164–90; Zoltán Szombathy, The Roots of Arabic Genealogy: A Study in Historical Anthropology (Piliscsaba, 2003); Zoltán Szombathy, “Genealogy in Medieval Muslim Societies,” Studia Islamica 95 (2002), 5–35; Chase Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003), 40–41. 31. To date there is no full-length study of the social function of genealogy and genealogical literature in medieval Jewish society. For an important discussion of the role of lineage within the Babylonian yeshivot, see Avraham Grossman, “From Father to Son: The Inheritance of the Spiritual Leadership of the Jewish Communities in the Early Middle Ages,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, ed. David Kraemer (Oxford, 1989), 115–32. In terms of my own conclusions, it is noteworthy that Grossman links the emergence of a dynastic principle of succession in the yeshivot to the importance of ancestral privilege in Abbasid society. See also Avraham David, “The Family Ascendancy of Jewish Leadership in Babylon in the Tenth Century” (Hebrew), Shevet Va’am: Social and



214 Notes to Pages 11–16 Cultural Problems of Sephardi and Oriental Jewry in Israel and throughout the World, n.s. 2 [7] (1973), 263–71. 32. Concerning the practice of geniza, see Mark R. Cohen and Yedida K. Stillman, “The Cairo Geniza and the Custom of Geniza among Oriental Jewry: An Historical and Ethnographic Study” (Hebrew), Peʿamim 24 (1985), 3–35. 33. On the history of the Ben Ezra synagogue, see Phyllis Lambert, ed., Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo (London, 1994). 34. For a description of the Cambridge collection and Schechter’s involvement in its acquisition, see Stefan Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, UK, 2000). 35. On the discovery of the Geniza and its impact on Jewish scholarship, see now Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza (New York, 2011). 36. On this collection see David Sklare, “A Guide to Collections of Karaite Manuscripts,” in Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, ed. Meira Polliack (Leiden, 2003), 895, 905–9. 37. Concerning the provenance of materials in the Second Firkovich Collection, see Zev Elkin and Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Abraham Firkovich and the Cairo Genizas in the Light of His Personal Archives” (Hebrew), Pe‘amim 90 (2002), 51–95; Malachi Beit-Arie, “Hebrew Manuscript Collections in Leningrad” (Hebrew), Jewish Studies 31 (1991), 33– 46; Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Firkovich’s Second Collection: Remarks on Historical and Halakhic Materials” (Hebrew), Jewish Studies 31 (1991), 47–67. 38. Babylonische Geonim im nachgäonische Zeitalter nach handschriftlichen und gedrucket Quellen (Berlin, 1914), 111–34. 39. See Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (1920–22; reprint, New York, 1970), 1:171–78, 253–54, 271–72, and passim; Jacob Mann, “Misrat rosh ha-gola be-Bavel ve-histaʿafuyoteha be-sof tequfat ha-geʾonim,” in Livre d’ hommage à la mémoire du Dr. Samuel Poznanski (Warsaw, 1927), 18–32 (Hebrew section); Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 1:394–411, 2:128–55. 40. See the reference in the preceding note. Several years later Mann would refer to the subject of that article as “the problem of the establishment of the office of Exilarch in some countries outside Babylon.” See his Texts and Studies, 1:394. 41. Mann, “Misrat rosh ha-gola,” 26. On the view that medieval Jewish political institutions were structured by and evolved in tandem with the geopolitical concerns of the host regime, see the observations in Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah)(Philadelphia, 1967), 138–39. 42. The conflict between these is one of the many intrigues that Nathan ha-Bavli says resulted from the famous dispute between Saʿadya Gaʾon and the exilarch David ben Zakkay. According to Nathan, the clash began when Saʿadya refused to endorse a legal ruling issued by the exilarchal court. As the conflict intensified each of the parties deposed the other, appointing a personal loyalist to his rival’s former position. David made Joseph ben Jacob bar Saṭya gaʾon of Sura, while Saʿadya declared David’s brother, Josiah, exilarch. Josiah



Notes to Pages 16–17 215

held office for only a short time, however, before David was restored to power and he was forced to flee to Khurasān. A generation later, however, the descendants of Josiah appear to have regained control of the exilarchate. See Nathan’s account in Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:82–83. On this episode see Malter, Saadiah Gaon, 89–134; Ellis Rivkin, “The Saadia-David ben Zakkai Controversy: A Structural Analysis,” in Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman, ed. M. Ben-Horin (Leiden, 1962), 388–423. 43. See, for example, degel ha-nesiʾut, the honorific of Moses ben Mevorakh, in T-S 32.8, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:257–59; ʿezer ha-nesiʾut, referring to Abraham ben Nathan, in T-S 13J22.10, ibid., 2:232; ḥedvat ha-nesiʾut, the title of Nathan ben Samuel, in T-S 13J22.2, in Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1976), 270–73; ḥemdat ha-nesiʾut, the honorific of Sahlān ben Abraham, in T-S 8Ja2.1, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:406–7 and T-S 20.6, in Simḥa Assaf, “Old Genizah Documents from Palestine, Egypt and North Africa” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 9 (1938), 30–32; segulat ha-nesiʾut, the title of Abraham ben Shemaʿya, in Bodl. MS Heb. d 65, fol. 25. On the granting of titles, see Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 76–86; Elinoar Bareket Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999), 34–36; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:22–40, 5:260–72. 44. The same view was endorsed by Baron as well, who writes that “internal dissensions in Babylonia’s exilarchic family led to the formation of another Jewish provincial administration in Mosul. Zakkai ben Azariah, like his brother Daniel barred from succession to the exilarchic office by the long reign of Hezekiah from David ben Zakkai’s line, likewise left Baghdad and founded a new branch dynasty which was to rule over Mosul Jewry for some three centuries” (A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2d rev. ed., 18 vols. [New York and Philadelphia, 1952–83], 5:43). See, too, Menahem Ben-Sasson’s characterization of the first appearance of nesiʾim in Syria as resulting from frustrated political ambitions and competition with the exilarchate in “The Eretz Israel-Syria Axis: The Formal Aspect” (Hebrew), Peʿamim 66 (1996), 15. 45. See, e.g., Baron, Social and Religious History, 5:210, where it is argued that ʿAnan’s “refusal to accept meekly . . . [his brother’s selection as the next exilarch] set in motion a chain of developments which ultimately resulted in the formation of the Karaite sect.” On recent trends in research on the origins of Karaism, see Meira Polliack, “Medieval Karaism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. Martin Goodman (Oxford, 2002), 305; Daniel Frank, “The Study of Medieval Karaism, 1989–1999,” in Hebrew Scholarship and the Medieval World, ed. Nicholas de Lange (Cambridge, 2001), 6. 46. Mann, The Jews in Egypt, 1:253–4; see also 271: “The Nasi’s authority was more of a moral character by reason of his descent from David.” 47. This tension is also evident in Salo W. Baron, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1942), 1:194, where, following Mann, Baron first observes that the nesiʾim were “little more than dignified mendicants . . . [who] were maintained by charitable contributions,” but then notes that “some, however, achieved more than passing prominence.” See also Baron, Social and Religious History, 5:38–39, and the brief comments in Eliezer Bashan, Miv­ḥar bibliyografi ʿal rashut ha-gola, ha-nesiʾut veha-negidut ba-mizraḥ (Ramat Gan, 1974), 5–6.



216 Notes to Pages 17–20 48. On the tendency to confuse titles with political institutions, see Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of the Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), 38–40. 49. Several of Goitien’s articles deal primarily with nesiʾim. Among the most important of these are “The Jews of Yemen between the Palestinian Gaon, Residing in Fatimid Cairo and the Babylonian Exilarch” (Hebrew), in Ha-temanim: Historiya, sidrei ḥevra, ḥayyei ruaḥ, ed. Menahem Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem, 1983), 53–74; “Nesiʾei Moṣul ve-ḥurban batehem bi-reʿidat adama,” in Sefer Yosef Braslavi (Braslavski): Meḥqarim be-miqra, be-lashon uve-yediʿat ha-areṣ mugashim lo be-hagiʿo le-seva, ed. Yisrael Ben-Shem, Haim Gevaryahu, and Ben-Ṣiyyon Lurya (Jerusalem, 1970), 486–501; and “New Sources on Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), in Ha-yishuv be-Ereṣ Yisraʾel be-reshit ha-islam uvi-tequfat haṣalbanim le-or kitvei ha-geniza, ed. Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1980), 132–87. 50. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 2:19. Consider as well Goitein’s characterization of a nasi named David who served as a communal official in Fustat during the second half of the twelfth century and whose name appears on three payment orders. In Mediterranean Society, 2:458, Goitein remarks that despite his lavish titles he was “certainly not a man of consequence.” 51. See, for instance, S. D. Goitein, “Additions to ‘Ha-Rav,’ Tarbiẓ, XLV (1976), pp. 64–75” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 46 (1977), 153, where he refers to “those numerous descendants of the family of the exilarchs who circulated among the communities and imposed themselves on the public.” On at least two other occasions, Goitein describes the nesiʾim as “parasitic.” See S. D. Goitein, “A Letter to Maimonides and New Sources regarding the Negidim of This Family” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 34 (1965), 239; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:318. Of historiographical significance is the fact that this theme recurs in a number of Goitein’s publications and in them is meant as an encapsulation of the activities of the nesiʾim in general rather than a description of the career of a particular individual. 52. Ibid., 2:17. 53. Miriam Frenkel, “Historiography of the Jews in Muslim Countries in the Middle Ages: Landmarks and Prospects” (Hebrew), Peʿamim 92 (2002), 48–58. 54. Ibid., 52. 55. Mark R. Cohen, “Goitein, Magic and the Geniza,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 13 (2006), 294–97. 56. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, 178–212. 57. Mark R. Cohen, “New Light on the Conflict over the Palestinian Gaonate, 1038– 1042, and on Daniel b. ʿAzarya: A Pair of Letters to the Nagid of Qayrawan,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 1 (1976), 1–40. 58. See Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), the first volume of which was updated and published in English as A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992); Moshe Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel ­bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997), vol. 1 published in English as Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages. 59. See Moshe Gil, “The Scroll of Evyatar as a Source for the History of the Struggles of the Yeshiva of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century: A New Reading of



Notes to Pages 20–24 217

the Scroll” (Hebrew), in Peraqim be-toledot Yerushalayim bi-mei ha-benayim, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar (Jerusalem, 1979), 39–106; Moshe Gil, “The Babylonian Encounter” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 48 (1978–79), 35–73, updated and revised in Jews in Islamic Countries, 58–82. 60. Consider, for example, Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford, 2005), 40n164, and Elinoar Bareket, “The Jews of Egypt and Its Main City of Fustat-Misr,” in Giovanni-Ovadiah da Oppido, proselito, viaggiatore e musicista dell’età normanna (Florence, 2005), 173. See, too, in this connection the comments of Avraham David, “Jews in Crusader Acre in Light of a New Geniza Source” (Hebrew), in Masʾat Moshe: Meḥqarim be-tarbut yisraʾel ve-ʿarav mugashim le-Moshe Gil (Jerusalem, 1998), 160n12. 61. The representation of nesiʾim as aspiring rulers has also made its way into works aimed at a broader readership. See, for example, EJ 2, s.v. “Nasi,” 14:785 (Isaac Levitats); Dictionary of the Middle Ages, s.v. “Exilarch,” 4:551–52 (Eliezer Bashan); Ben-Zion Dinur, “Jewish History: Its Uniqueness and Continuity,” in Jewish Society through the Ages, ed. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson and Samuel Ettinger (New York, 1972), 23–24. And see most recently Joel Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008), 217 (“Local judges and muqaddams [community leaders] also wielded power, as did Geonim and Nesiʾim”). 62. For this characterization of “the days of the messiah,” see BT Sanhedrin 91a, cited and endorsed by Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot melakhim u-milḥamotehem 12:2. 63. Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1984), 78. 64. See Jonathan Berkey, “Culture and Society during the Late Middle Ages,” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1, Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, ed. Carl F. Petry (Cambridge, 1998), 379–80. According to Berkey the population of Cairo was approximately 300,000. 65. Eliyahu Ashtor put the number of Jews in Egypt between ten and twelve thousand; see “The Number of Jews in Mediaeval Egypt,” Journal of Jewish Studies 18 (1967), 9–42; 19 (1968), 1–22. See also S. D. Goitein, “Jewish Society and Institutions under Islam,” Journal of World History 11 (1968), 173; Norman Golb, “The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965), 251–70. 66. Norman Stillman puts the total Jewish population of Fustat in excess of 4000 based on Goitein’s estimate of a Rabbanite population of 3,600 individuals (Mediterranean Society, 2:139–40). See “The Non-Muslim Communities: The Jewish Community,” in Cambridge History of Egypt, 1:201–2. 67. “The Number of Jews in Moslem Spain” (Hebrew), Zion 28 (1963), 55–56. 68. See the remarks in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 491. 69. On the legal sources that define dhimmī status, see Antoine Fattal, Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam (Beirut, 1958). 70. See Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 52–72. 71. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:294. 72. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma, 1:273, cited in Abraham L. Udovitch, Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1970), 227. 73. On the Jewish embrace of Arabic see Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic: A Study of the Origins of Neo-Arabic and Middle Arabic, 3d ed. (Jerusalem, 1999). The earliest examples of Judeo-Arabic writing are private letters from ninth-century Egypt; scholarly texts begin to appear somewhat later. See Geoffrey



218 Notes to Pages 24–25 Khan, “Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. Martin Goodman, Jeremy Cohen, and David Sorkin (Oxford, 2002), 602. 74. See the letter attributed to Maimonides’ father, in L. M. Simmons, “The Letter of Consolation of Maimun ben Joseph,” Jewish Quarterly Review o.s. 2 (1890), 77. For persuasive arguments challenging this attribution, see David Wasserstein, “The Date and Authorship of the Letter of Consolation Attributed to Maymūn b. Yūsuf,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32 (2006), 410–18. 75. On this see Simon Hopkins, “The Languages of Maimonides,” in The Trias of Maimonides: Jewish, Arabic and Ancient Culture of Knowledge, ed. Georges Tamer (Berlin, 2005), 93–99. 76. Iggerot le-rabenu Moshe ben Maymon: Ha-maqor ha-ʿaravi ve-tirgum le-ʿivrit, ed. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem, 1972), 150. See also Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Isaac Shailat, 2 vols. (Ma‘aleh Adumim, 1987), 2:531, where Maimonides writes that Arabic “is surely Hebrew that has been slightly corrupted.” Several centuries earlier the similarities between Hebrew and Arabic were noted in the introduction to the Risāla of Judah Ibn Quraysh; see Ha-‘Risāla’ shel Yehuda ben Quraysh: Mahadura biqortit, ed. Dan Becker (Tel Aviv, 1984), 117, 119 (Arabic); 116, 118 (Hebrew). 77. Joel Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age, 2d rev. ed. (Leiden, 1992), 60; see also 75–86. 78. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:240–61, 288. On the objections to dhimmī physicians, including Jews, that would emerge after the middle of the thirteenth century, see the following studies by Moshe Perlmann: “Notes on Anti-Christian Propaganda in the Mamluk Empire,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies 10 (1940–42), 843–61; “Asnawi’s Tract against Christian Officials,” in Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume: Part II, ed. Samuel Löwinger, Alexander Scheiber, and Joseph Somogyi (Jerusalem, 1958), 172–208; and “Notes on the Position of Jewish Physicians in Medieval Muslim Countries,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 15–19. 79. Ibn Juljul, Ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ waʾl-ḥukamāʾ, ed. Fuad Sayyid (Cairo, 1955), 87, cited in Alexander Altman and S. M. Stern, Isaac Israeli (Oxford, 1958), xviii. 80. Concerning Andalusian poets who wrote in Arabic, see S. M. Stern, “Arabic Poems by Spanish-Hebrew Poets,” in Romanica et Occidentalia: Études dédiées à la mémoire de Hiram Peri (Pflaum), ed. Moshe Lazar (Jerusalem, 1963), 254–63; Yehuda Ratzaby, “Shira ʿaravit be-fi yehudim be-Andalusiya,” in Sefer Yisrael Levin: Qoveṣ meḥqarim be-sifrut haʿivrit le-doroteha, ed. Reuven Zur and Tovah Rosen, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1994), 1:329–50. 81. See Joseph Sadan, “Judah Alharizi as a Cultural Junction: An Arabic Biography of a Jewish Writer as Perceived by an Orientalist” (Hebrew), Peʿamim 68 (1996), 16–66. For al-Ḥarīzī’s Arabic compositions, see now Kitāb al-durar: Ve-hu sefer peninei ha-musarim ve-shivḥei ha-qehalim, ed. and trans. Joshua Blau, Joseph Yahalom, and Paul Fenton (Jerusalem, 2009). 82. Ross Brann, “The Arabized Jews,” in The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge, 2000), 436. 83. See Aron Dotan, Or rishon be-ḥokhmat ha-lashon: Sefer ṣaḥut leshon ha-ʿivrim le-rav Saʿadya gaʾon, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1997), introduction.



Notes to Pages 25–29 219

84. See Haggai Ben-Shammai, “Kalām in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (London, 1997), 124–25. 85. See Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Shailat, 1:404 (Arabic), 408–9 (Hebrew); Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (New York, 1972), 478–80 (English). 86. The poem speaks of the kingdom of Nebaioth, who, according to Genesis 25:13, was the first-born son of Ishmael. The latter was regarded as the ancestor of the Arabs and commonly represents Islam or the Arab peoples in medieval Jewish literature. 87. See “Amera gola ve-sura,” in Shirei ha-qodesh le-rabi Shelomo Ibn Gabirol, ed. Dov Jarden, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1971–73), 1:176, ll. 12–13. 88. Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Shailat, 1:108 (Arabic), 160 (Hebrew). For two contrasting interpretations of this passage see Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 197–99, and Bernard Septimus, “Hispano-Jewish Views of Christendom and Islam,” in In Iberia and Beyond: Hispanic Jews between Cultures, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Newark, Del., 1998), 44–45, 59. The translation is taken from Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands, 241. 89. See also Goitein’s remarks concerning “group consciousness” among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Mediterranean Society, 2:273–77. 90. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot teshuva, 3:9. 91. For the impact of ʿarabiyya on Jewish society, see Joseph Sadan, “Identity and Inimitability: Contexts of Inter-Religious Polemics and Solidarity in Medieval Spain, in Light of Two Passages by Moshe ibn ʿEzra and Yaʿaqov ben Elʿazar,” Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994), 325–47; Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore, 1991), 14; Norman Roth, “Jewish Reactions to the ‘Arabiyya,” Journal of Semitic Studies 28 (1983), 63–84. 92. Brann, “The Arabized Jews,” 443. 93. See “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets: Judeo-Arabic Culture in the Golden Age of Islam,” in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York, 2002), 363. 94. It is noteworthy that in addressing the problematics of medieval Hebrew poetry, Brann, too, draws attention to the legitimizing function of biblical lineages; see Compunctious Poet, 52 (discussing Ibn Naghrīla), 107–8 (discussing Halevi). 95. See Meira Polliack, “Medieval Karaism,” 320–21. 96. See Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998), 6. See also Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 239–88; Geoffrey Khan, The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought, Including a Critical Edition, Translation and Analysis of the Diqduq of ʾAbū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ on the Hagiographa (Leiden, 2000), 3–4; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:7. 97. For medieval traditions about ʿAnan and the beginnings of the Karaite movement, see Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature (New Haven, Conn., 1952), 3–8. 98. See Gil, History of Palestine, 782–84; Haggai Ben-Shammai, “The Karaite Controversy: Scripture and Tradition in Early Karaism,” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, ed. B. Lewis and F. Niewöhner (Wiesbaden, 1992), 11–26; Haggai Ben-Shammai, “The

220 Notes to Pages 30–35 Karaites,” in The History of Jerusalem, ed. Joshua Prawer and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem, 1996), 201–24. 99. On the nesiʾim of southern France see Shlomo Pick, “Jewish Aristocracy in Southern France,” Revue des études juives 161 (2002), 87–121; Shlomo Pick, “Le-ofyan shel ha-qehilot ha-yehudiyot be-Provans lifnei ha-gerush bi-shenat 1306” (Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 1996), 41–46, 52–80, 112–60; Aryeh Grabois, “Le ‘roi juif’ de Narbonne,” Annales du Midi 218 (1997), 165–88; Aryeh Grabois, “The Nassiim of Narbonne: On the Image and Nature of Jewish Leadership in Southern France in the Middle Ages” (Hebrew), Michael 12 (1991), 43–66; Arthur J. Zuckerman, A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768–900 (New York, 1972). Zuckerman’s work is critically reviewed in Jeremy Cohen, “The Nasi of Narbonne: A Problem in Jewish Historiography,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 2 (1972), 45–76. On the nesiʾim in northern Spain, see Elka Klein, Jews, Chrisian Society, and Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2006), 52–57, 71, 78–82, 116–41; Bernard Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture in Transition: The Career and Controversies of Ramah (Cambridge, 1982); Bernard Septimus, “Piety and Power in Thirteenth-Century Catalonia,” Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, 1979), 197–230. On nesiʾim in Germany, see Poznanski, Babylonische Geonim, 119. 100. For a similar argument regarding the importance of situating the nesiʾim of Narbonne within the context of feudal society in southern France, see Aryeh Grabois, “Jewish Society in the XIth-XIIth Centuries C.E. according to an Anonymous Hebrew Chronicle of Narbonne” (Hebrew), Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies, division B, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1975), 79. 101. Ibid., 77; Klein, Jews, Christian Society, and Royal Power, 55.

Chapter 1 1. Halper 462. For a full transcription and translation of this text, see Appendix A. Known to Arab geographers as Raḥbat Malik ibn Tawq or Raḥbat al-Shām, the town of the copyist’s family origins was identified by medieval Jews and Christians with Rehoboth on the River (Reḥovot ha-nahar) mentioned in Genesis 36:37. At the end of the twelfth century Benjamin of Tudela reports that 2,000 Jews lived there; see Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 34 (Hebrew), 34 (English). Additional evidence of support for the Davidic line in al-Raḥba during the late twelfth century can be detected in a letter by Samuel ben ʿEli. The missive, addressed to the Jews of al-Raḥba along with those dwelling in surrounding towns in northern Syria, urges its readers to transfer their loyalty and financial support from the exilarchate to the gaʾon’s own institution; see Simḥa Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli and His Contemporaries” (Hebrew), pt. 2, Tarbiẓ 1.2 (1930), 62–70. 2. On Zakkay ben ʿAzarya, see Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 720, esp. n. 158; Moshe Gil, “Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634–1099): Additions, Notes and Corrections” (Hebrew), Teʿuda 7 (1991), 302. Gil identified four documents that either mention Zakkay by name or refer to him:



Notes to Pages 37–39 221

Bodl. MS Heb. e 101, fol. 18, partially published in Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (1920–22; reprint, New York, 1970), 2:208, a letter from Zakkay to the leaders of the Jewish community in Damascus; T-S 10J25.2, published in Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:69, in which Daniel ben ʿAzarya thanks someone for assisting his brother; T-S 13J26.18, published in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:655–62, in which Daniel complains about his brother’s disruptive behavior; and T-S NS 338.94, mentioned in Gil, History of Palestine, 721n158, another letter thanking its addressee for his kindness toward Zakkay. 3. For rabbinic views of King David see Avigdor Shinan, “ʿAl demuto shel ha-melekh David be-sifrut ḥazal,” in David: Me-roʿe le-mashiaḥ, ed. Yair Zakovitch (Jerusalem, 1995), 181–99. For an analysis of the differences between the Palestinian and Babylonian portrayals of David, see Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (New York, 1999), 83–93. 4. David Goodblatt’s caution about drawing conclusions from the paucity of references to claims of a Davidic pedigree in rabbinic sources is relevant. He writes: “The few references to that pedigree are about all we can expect, given the bias of our sources. . . . The fact that rabbinic literature preserves relatively few sources expressing the Davidic claims of the House of Gamaliel does not mean this was unimportant for the Jewish community in general. Rather it shows what was relatively unimportant for the talmudic masters or editors of the talmud. It is quite possible that for the average Jew of Roman Palestine or of Sasanian Babylonia, the Davidic lineage of their nasiʾ was of far greater significance than the legal and academic discourse of the rabbinic masters.” See The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (Tübingen, 1994), 310. See also Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vols. (Leiden, 1965–70), 3:57. 5. PT Kilayim 9:4, 32a–b. On the relationship between this passage and other genealogical claims on behalf of the patriarchate, see the discussion in Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, 149–54, and in Albert Baumgarten, “Rabbi Judah I and His Opponents,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 12.2 (1981), 145–49. Judah ha-Nasi’s presumably unimpeachable Davidic credentials are referred to in BT Shabbat 56a (“Rav observed: Rabbi [Judah] . . . is descended from David”), and BT Ketubbot 62b–63a, where he is traced to David’s fifth son, Shephatiah. See also PT Ketubbot 12:3, 35a, an alternate version of the confession cited, in which Judah ha-Nasi adds that he is descended from the tribe of Benjamin while the exilarch is descended from Judah. 6. See also BT Sanhedrin 98a, cited below, which raises questions about the Davidic pedigrees of patriarchs and exilarchs. 7. Baumgarten, “Rabbi Judah I and His Opponents,” 148. 8. The various traditions about the Davidic pedigree of Ḥiyya, identified in rabbinic sources as neither a patriarch nor an exilarch, are a rare exception. See, e.g., PT Taʿanit 4:2, 68a (=Bereshit Rabbah 98, ed. Theodor-Albeck, 1259), where he is said to descend “from the sons of Shephatiah son of Avital,” and BT Ketubbot 62b, where he is traced to David’s brother Shimi. 9. PT Taʿanit 4:2, 68a (=Bereshit Rabbah 98, ed. Theodor-Albeck, 1259). 10. PT Sota 7:6, 22a.



222 Notes to Pages 39–42 11. BT Sanhedrin 5a. See also the parallel versions in BT Horayot 11a and Bereshit Rabbah 97, ed. Theodor-Albeck, 1219. 12. See, for example, PT Shabbat 16:1, 15c. Such a view may have also elicited the ironic critique voiced by the sons of Ḥiyya at a banquet hosted by Judah ha-Nasi. The two are reported to have said that “the son of David [i.e., the messiah] will arrive only with the disappearance of the two ruling houses in Israel, the exilarchate in Babylonia and the patriarchate in the land of Israel.” See BT Sanhedrin 38a. 13. See the sources cited above, in note 5. 14. A similar vagueness about the details of a sage’s genealogy occurs at PT Yevamot 1:4, 3a-b, where, without any elaboration, Eleazar ben ʿAzarya is said to be a tenth-generation descendant of the biblical Ezra. See also BT Berakhot 27b. 15. See Marshall Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus (Cambridge, 1969), 111, commenting on PT Taʿanit 4:2, 68a. 16. See the genealogy in Naḥman Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim (Vienna, 1864), 111a, as well as the discussion in Chapter 2, below. 17. L. Grünhut, Die Rundreise des R. Petachjah aus Regensburg (Jerusalem and Frankfurt am Main, 1905), 29. 18. See Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot sanhedrin, chapter 4 and his gloss to Bekhorot 4:4 in Mishna ʿim perush rabenu Moshe ben Maymon, Seder Toharot, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem, 1963–68), 242–46. 19. See Adolf Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), 2:84. 20. For another reference to this custom, see Abraham ben Nathan of Lunel, Sefer hamanhig le-rabi Avraham be-rabi Natan ha-yarḥi, ed. Yitzhak Raphael, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1978), 1:82: “It was the custom in Qayrawān to prepare a seat in the synagogue next to the ark for Mar ʿUqba the exilarch, and after reading the portions of kohen and levi they would lower the Torah to him.” The practice is also discussed in Megillat setarim by Nissim ben Jacob Ibn Shāhīn of Qayrawān; see the reference to it in the table of contents of that nowlost work in Shraga Abramson, Rav Nissim Gaʾon: Ḥamisha sefarim (Jerusalem, 1965), 278: “As for the custom to lower the Torah scroll to the nasi [al-dāʾūdī]—there is a basis for it.” 21. See Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 3, Tarbiẓ 1.3 (1930), 73. See also ENA 2697.26 in Elkan N. Adler, “The Installation of the Egyptian Nagid,” Jewish Quarterly Review o.s. 9 (1896–97), 717–19, which refers to the exilarch’s “royal scepter.” 22. See Ezra Fleischer, “New Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), Shalem 1 (1974), 68, line 118. For the revised date of the work’s composition see Gil, History of Palestine, 660n125. 23. See Moses ben Maimon, Qoveṣ teshuvot ha-Rambam ve-iggerotav, ed. Abraham Lichtenberg (Leipzig, 1859), pt. 3, 21–22. 24. For the ruling see BT Moʿed Qatan 16a. For Hodaya ben Jesse’s appeal to this doctrine, see Abraham ben Moses, Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, ed. A. H. Freimann and S. D. Goitein (Jerusalem, 1938), 13–26, and the discussion in Elchanan Reiner, “ʿAliya ve-ʿaliya la-regel le-Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 1099–1517” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of



Notes to Pages 43–46 223

Jerusalem, 1988), 75–78; Elchanan Reiner, “Between Ashkenaz and Jerusalem” (Hebrew), Shalem 4 (1984), 49n85. The principle is also cited in the letter of excommunication signed by David ben Hodaya and Jedidiah ben Jesse in Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110. 25. On this point see the observations in Menahem Ben-Sasson, Ṣemiḥat ha-qehila ha-yehudit be-arṣot ha-islam: Qayrawan, 800–1057 (Jerusalem, 1996), 159. 26. On Yefet ben David, see Elinoar Bareket, Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999), 160–76. See his letter, T-S 13J27.5 + T-S 13J13.13, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:742. The same expression is used in T-S Misc. 25.146 (also by Yefet), in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:745; and Bodl. MS Heb. d 75, fol. 18, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:703. Daniel sends wishes to ʿEli ben Amram “from us and from the three nesiʾim, our sons” in West. Coll. Misc. 103, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:693. For biographical information on Daniel’s sons, see Gil, History of Palestine, 720–23. 27. See Adler, Itinerary, 42 (Hebrew), 42 (English). 28. T-S 13J25.21, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:207. 29. See, for example, 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057, cited in Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 2:140, a commentary on Leviticus by Abū al-Faraj Furqān ibn Asad that was copied for the early thirteenth-­century Karaite nasi Solomon ben David. The manuscript’s colophon contains blessings for Solomon and “the four great nesiʾim, his sons.” On Karaite nesiʾim, see Judith ­Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998), 150–53. 30. Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) (Philadelphia, 1967), 69; and see the comments, 269. 31. Ibid., 62. 32. See Bernard Septimus, “Piety and Power in Thirteenth-Century Catalonia,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 203–5. 33. See Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1992), 1:92. 34. See Taḥkemoni, ed. Y. Toporovsky (Tel Aviv, 1952), 346. 35. For Muslim usage, see, for example, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-mawāʿiẓ waʾl-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ waʾl-āthār, 2 vols. (Bulaq, 1853–54), 2:409. 36. See the first letter, T-S 10J15.19, and the second, T-S 13J16.7, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:124–27 and 3:127–32, respectively. 37. T-S 18J2.3, ibid., 3:469–74. See also JTS Schechter Genizah 4, in Moshe Gil, Bemalkhut Yishmaʿel bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997), 2:197–202, a letter written in the early decades of the eleventh century, in which Elijah ben Abraham is identified as Elijah ha-Kohen in the body of the text, but as Īliyā ibn Ibrāhīm al-Hārūnī in the address. 38. See T-S NS 320.45, a petition requesting confirmation of the appointment of Joseph ha-Kohen as a judge in Alexandria, in S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on the Palestinian Gaonate,” in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. Saul Lieberman and Arthur Hyman (Jerusalem, 1974), 526–27 (English), 536 (Arabic).



224 Notes to Pages 47–49 39. See T-S 12.440, mentioned in S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 4:423, 429. The bride’s name is only partially legible and appears as “the daughter of . . . Eliezer ha-[Kohe]n the elder.” See also T-S 13J2.3, an engagement agreement from the year 1093 for a woman identified as Turfa ha-Kohenet. For a discussion of the title kohenet in rabbinic literature, see Bernadette Brooten, Women Leaders in the Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (Chico, Calif., 1982), 78–82. 40. See T-S 8.5, partially edited in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:346. A deceased woman of Davidic lineage is also mentioned in T-S 8K22.2, a memorial list of nesiʾim and communal leaders of the Karaite community in Fustat; see Mann, Jews in Egypt, 1:176–79, 2:210–11. 41. See Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:19–20. 42. See T-S Ar. 6.28, mentioned in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:6. See also Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Ribbuy nashim be-yisraʾel: Meqorot ḥadashim mi-genizat Qahir (Jerusalem, 1986), 295–96. 43. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:5. On indifference to the maternal line in determining ancestry in Islamic society, see the observations of David Wasserstein, “When Is a Fake a Fake and How Much Does It Matter? On the Authenticity of the Letter of the Descendants of Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ to the Descendants of Muʿāwiya b. Ṣāliḥ,” in Texts, Documents, and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D. S. Richards, ed. D. S. Richards and Chase Robinson (Leiden, 2003), 391. Compare this with Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley, 1977), 153, who comments on the preference for tracing noble genealogies through paternal ancestors in twelfth-century France. 44. Consider the genealogy of the fourteenth-century Iraqi nasi David ben Hodaya. David is presented in that list as a direct descendant of King David through Judah haNasi, who, according to a rabbinic tradition cited above, was a descendant of the biblical monarch “on the maternal side.” Nonetheless, the genealogy links Judah ha-Nasi to King David through a succession of twenty-eight ancestors, all of whom are male. 45. On Joseph ben Gershom, see Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, 13n3. See also the dirge composed after his death in Eleazar ben Jacob ha-Bavli, Diwan: Qoveṣ shirei El ʿazar ben Yaʿaqov ha-bavli, ed. Ḥayim Brody (Jerusalem, 1935), 11–12. 46. On Hodaya’s family and origins, see Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 441–45; S. D. Goitein, “Nesiʾei Moṣul ve-ḥurban batehem bi-reʿidat adama,” in Sefer Yosef Braslavi (Braslavski): Meḥqarim bemiqra, be-lashon uve-yediʿat ha-areṣ mugashim lo be-hagiʿo le-seva, ed. Yisrael Ben-Shem, Haim Gevaryahu, and Ben-Ṣiyyon Lurya (Jerusalem, 1970), 486–501. 47. See T-S NS J29, in Miriam Frenkel, Ha-ohavim veha-nedivim: ʿIlit manhiga be-qerev yehudei Aleksandriya bi-mei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 603–7. See also Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:318, 353. My interpretation follows the reconstruction of Goitein, who dated the letter to the 1220s; see S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (“India Book”) (Leiden, 2008), 110. 48. See Reiner, “ʿAliya ve-ʿaliya la-regel,” 76. 49. Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, 13. 50. Ibid., 16. 51. Ibid., 15.



Notes to Pages 49–53 225

52. Ibid., 14. 53. Abraham Maimonides’ initial hesitation to intervene in the matter is apparent from the apologetic opening lines of the response he eventually wrote to Joseph: “Far be it from a great man such as yourself to suspect me of showing favor in a legal matter to anyone, whether great or small. . . . Moreover, you did not come before me as litigants.… And for that reason I treated him politely and compassionately according to my custom and the custom of my father and teacher.” See Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, 17. See also the letter printed in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:371–72, in which Joseph complains to someone named Ṭāhir that he appealed to the nagid concerning some unspecified matter and has yet to receive a response. 54. Teshuvot rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam, 18. 55. Ibid., 20. 56. On al-Qalqashandī, see EI 2, s.v. “al-Ḳalḳashandī,” 4:509–11 (C. E. Bosworth). For the letter of appointment, see al-Qalqashandī, Subḥ al-aʿshā fī sināʿat al-inshāʾ, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Rasūl Ibrāhīm, 14 vols. (Cairo, 1913–20), 11:385–92. See also Richard Gottheil, “An Eleventh-Century Document Concerning a Cairo Synagogue,” Jewish Quarterly Review o.s. 19 (1907), 530. 57. My interpretation of this clause follows that of Eliyahu Ashtor, Toledot ha-yehudim be-Miṣrayim ve-Suriya taḥat shilṭon ha-mamlukim, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1944–70), 2:240. For slightly different readings see C. E. Bosworth, “Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries in Mamluk Egypt and Syria: Qalqashandī’s Information on Their Hierarchy, Titulature, and Appointment (II),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3.2 (1972), 211–15, and EI 2, s.v. “Nasīʾ,” 7:977–78 (Paula Sanders). 58. See T-S 20.128, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:254–58. 59. See T-S 8K22.2, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:210–11. Following this list are two others, one for deceased kohanim introduced by the formula “A fitting memorial . . . for the memory of the noble family, the family of the kohanim,” and another for a family of Karaite leaders that begins “A fitting memorial . . . for the memory of the noble family.” 60. See T-S NS 298.6, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:4. 61. Commentary on Zechariah 12:7. 62. See T-S 8J38.6 (unpublished), available through the website of the Princeton Geniza Project (www.princeton.edu/~geniza/). 63. See Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn, 2 vols. in 1 (Cairo, 1964), 2:411. 64. See George Makdisi, “Autograph Diary of an Eleventh-Century Historian of Baghdad,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies 19 (1957), 25 (Arabic), 43 (English). 65. See Gil, History of Palestine, 493. See, the apposite observation concerning the “sudden frequency” which the title nasi begins to appear in medieval European communities in Cohen, Book of Tradition, 136. 66. See Samuel Poznanski Babylonische Geonim im nachgäonische Zeitalter nach handschriftlichen und gedrucket Quellen (Berlin, 1914), 228ff.; Jacob Mann, “Misrat rosh ha-gola be-Bavel ve-histaʿafuyoteha be-sof tequfat ha-geʾonim,” in Livre d’ hommage à la mémoire du Dr. Samuel Poznanski (Warsaw, 1927); Gil, History of Palestine, 540–45, 790– 94; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 441–45.



226 Notes to Pages 54–56 67. On these developments see Eliyahu Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1976), 149, 169–77; Eliyahu Ashtor, “Un mouvement migratoire au haut moyen âge: Migrations de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales: Economies, sociétés, civilisations 27 (1972), 185–214. 68. On these migrations and their impact on Jewish society see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:30–31; S. D. Goitein, “The Origins and Historical Significance of North African Jewry,” in Proceedings of the Seminar on Muslim-Jewish Relations in North Africa (New York, 1975), 9–10; Ben-Sasson, Ṣemiḥat ha-qehila ha-yehudit, 36–37; Mark R. Cohen, “Administrative Relations between Palestinian and Egyptian Jewry during the Fatimid Period,” in Egypt and Palestine: A Millennium of Association (868–1948), ed. Amnon Cohen and Gabriel Baer (Jerusalem and New York, 1984), 119–20. 69. See the Egyptian foundation legend preserved in David Ibn Abi Zimra, Sheʾelot u-teshuvot ha-Radbaz (reprint ed., New York, 1967), III, no. 944, and Joseph Sambari, Sefer divrei Yosef, ed. Shimon Shtober (Jerusalem, 1994), 139–40. Compare this to the muted role given to scions of the royal line in Abraham Ibn Daud’s retelling of the Andalusian myth of origins in Cohen, Book of Tradition, 60–62. 70. Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 2, Tarbiẓ 1.2 (1930), 51. 71. Consider, for instance, the vigorous defense of the superiority of the Babylonian tradition by Pirqoy ben Baboy on the grounds that it was spared from persecution, and Sherira bar Ḥanina’s claim that the synagogue of Nehardea was built with the stones of the First Temple. For the former, see Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 113–17 and the sources cited there; for the latter, see B. M. Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira gaʾon (Haifa, 1921), 72–73. For earlier roots of this sentiment, see Isaiah Gafni, Land, Center, and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity (Sheffield, 1997), 41–57. 72. Ashmūm, Damīra and al-Maḥalla: T-S NS J2, a document drawn up in 1244, published in S. D. Goitein, “Side Lights on Jewish Education from the Cairo Geniza,” in Gratz College Anniversary Volume (Philadelphia, 1971), 105ff. (Arabic), 93ff. (English). Bilbays: T-S 12.654, a letter from approximately 1240, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:261–64. 73. For Daqūqa, see Judah al-Ḥarīzī, Kitāb al-durar: Ve-hu sefer peninei ha-musarim ve-shivḥei ha-qehalim, ed. and trans. Joshua Blau, Joseph Yahalom, and Paul Fenton (Jerusalem, 2009), 204–6 (Arabic), 115–16 (English). For Jām, see the tombstone inscription in Eugen Ludwig Rapp, “Die persich-hebräischen Inschiften Afghanestans aus dem 11. bis 13. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch der Vereinigung “Freunde der Universität Mainz” 1971 (20), 94–95. 74. See Arnold E. Franklin, “Shoots of David: Members of the Exilarchal Dynasty in the Middle Ages” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2001), 213–41. 75. See DK 120, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:342–43 (emphasis added). 76. For the letter of Hezekiah ben David, see T-S 13J9.1, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:183–86 (the phrase is on 184, lines 7–8). For the letter of Daniel ben Ḥisday, see Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 3, Tarbiẓ 1.3 (1930), 71. 77. See T-S K25.244, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:736–41. Cf. the edition and translation in Goitein, “Daniel ben Azarya,” 144–49. Gil identifies the author as Abraham ben Isaac Ibn Furāt. The opening lines of the letter offer condolences on the death of “the good



Notes to Pages 56–60 227

ones, whom God has surely taken only because their righteousness and the nobility of their ancestors.” Both Goitein and Gil understand this to refer to Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s sister alone, and suggest that the masculine plural was used as a form of respect. I see no reason, however, to rule out the possibility of more than one deceased. 78. Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:738, lines 16 and 29; see also 2:737, line 4, where the writer refers more broadly to the Davidic kings as Daniel’s ancestors. That the same letter refers to Miriam in a more general way as “our mother” (emphasis added) only underscores the way David has been appropriated for Daniel’s family exclusively. 79. T-S 20.15, partially published in Mann, Texts and Studies, 1:408–9. 80. For the identification of the author, see Menahem Ben-Sasson, “The Eretz IsraelSyria Axis: The Formal Aspect” (Hebrew), Peʿamim 66 (1996), 7n10. The same Joseph evidently also wrote T-S Misc. 35.20, a letter addressed to the nasi Judah ben Josiah whose descent from David is similarly stressed. 81. Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fols. 49v–50r, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 432–33 (Hebrew), 434–36 (English). 82. Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 42, ibid., 470–72 (Hebrew), 473–77 (English). 83. See the discussion of this text below, Chapter 2. 84. See the chart in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 98–99, and below, Chapter 2. The exception is the genealogy of David ben Hodaya in Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110. Aside from the fact that the sequence of ancestors in that list is unattested in any earlier source, it is all the more dubious for its enumeration of only twelve generations between its subject and Judah ha-Nasi, a period of time spanning approximately 1,100 years! 85. On Bustanay, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 57–81, which revises the argument in Gil, “The Babylonian Encounter” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 48 (1978–79), 35–73, and Ḥayyim Tykocinski, “Bustanay rosh ha-gola,” Devir 1 (1923), 145–79. For the Judeo-Arabic version of the story of Bustanay, see the edition in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:4–10, reconstructed from three fragments in the hand of Sahlān ben Abraham: T-S NS 298.6 + ENA 4012 + BL Or. 5552. On Sahlān’s probable motive in copying the text, see Gil, History of Palestine, 659, 708–9. A fourth fragment, T-S 12.504, edited in E. J. Worman, “The Exilarch Bustānī,” Jewish Quarterly Review o.s. 20 (1908), 212–15, contains a portion of the text in a different hand. 86. For the various versions of the story, see the references in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 58–67. 87. See, for example, Jacob Mann’s discussion of the “ramification” of the family of the exilarchs after the second half of the tenth century in “Misrat rosh ha-gola,” 18–19. Mann’s formulation appears to be the basis for Goitein’s description of the exilarchal dynasty in the Geniza period as “large and ramified” in Mediterranean Society, 2:19. 88. On the ʿAlids, see Kazuo Morimoto, “The Formation and Development of the Science of Talibid Genealogies in the 10th and 11th Century Middle East,” Oriente Moderno n.s. 18.2 (1999), 541–70; Kazuo Morimoto, “A Preliminary Study on the Diffusion of the Niqāba al-Ṭālibīyīn: Towards an Understanding of the Early Dispersal of the Sayyids,” in The Influence of Human Mobility in the Muslim Societies, ed. H. Kukoki (London, 2003), 3–42; Kazuo Morimoto, “Putting the Lubāb al-Ansāb in Context: Sayyids and Naqībs in



228 Notes to Pages 61–63 Late Saljuq Khurasan,” Studia Iranica 36 (2007), 163–83. See also Teresa Bernheimer, “A Social History of the ʿAlid Family from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century” (Ph.D. diss., Oxford University, 2006), and the observations in Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), 85–86. 89. T-S 20.128, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:254–58. 90. For these terms, see EI 2, s.v. “Sharīf,” 9:329–37 (C. Van Arendok-[W.A. Graham]), and EI 2, s.v. “Sayyid,” 9:115–16 (C. E. Bosworth). 91. See West. Coll. Misc. 102, cited in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 1:175, 2:210. For the meaning of bayta as “noble family” in medieval Judeo-Arabic, see Joshua Blau, Milon leṭeqsṭim ʿarviyim-yehudiyim mi-mei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 57. 92. See Halper 462, in Appendix A, lines 18 and 22. See also line 24, where the subject is designated “our lord [sayyidunā].” 93. For Solomon’s court, see T-S 13J21.24, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:270, lines 2–3; T-S 18J4.13, in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:278, lines 2–3. For the sāda, see Gil, Bemalkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:279, line 23. 94. See Halper 462, in Appendix A, line 19. 95. Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:8. Consider also the description of the messiah several lines later in the text, where this idea again resurfaces: “May God send to His people the awaited redeemer, who comes from the pure line and is unsullied by this taint.” 96. See T-S 8J38.6, line 14. 97. See 2 Firk. Heb. A 142–43, in Simḥa Assaf, “Pesuqei di-verakha le-rosh ha-gola Ḥisday ben David,” Ginze Kedem 4 (1930), 63–64. 98. The phrase occurs in BT Ketubbot 17a. For its use as an introduction to public lectures in the Middle Ages, see Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira, 111; Bodl. MS Heb. g 12, fol. 54, cited in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:104; Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 2, Tarbiẓ 1.2 (1930), 62. 99. On commemoration of the ʿAlid past in Fatimid Egypt, see Paula Sanders, Ritual Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany, N.Y., 1994), 35–36, 121–34; Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden, 1991), 149–52; Caroline Williams, “The Cult of ʿAlid Saints in the Fatimid Monuments of Cairo, Part I: The Mosque of Aqmar,” Muqarnas 1 (1983), 37–52; Caroline Williams, “The Cult of ʿAlid Saints in the Fatimid Monuments of Cairo, Part II: The Mausolea,” Muqarnas 3 (1985), 39–60. 100. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:444. 101. See Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:40. 102. T-S NS 308.94 (unpublished), described in Robert Brody, A Hand-List of Rabbinic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 1998), 201. 103. See the letter, reconstructed from fragments in three different Geniza collections (T-S 8J2 + ENA 4011.74 + Antonin 1131), in Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 3, Tarbiẓ 1.3 (1930), 68–77. See the discussion in Mann, Texts and Studies, 1:229–35. 104. See Ignaz Goldziher, “Renseignements de source musulmane sur la dignité de Resch Galuta,” Revue des études juives 8 (1884), 123–24; Walter J. Fischel, “The ‘Resch-Galuta’ in Arabic Literature” (Hebrew), in Sefer Magnes: Qoveṣ meḥqarim me-ʾet anshei ha-universiṭa ha-ʿivrit, ed. F. I. Baer et al. (Jerusalem, 1938), 181–87.



Notes to Pages 63–71 229

105. Steven Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1995), 55–56. 106. See Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, Kitāb al-ʿiqd al-farīd, ed. Aḥmad Amīn, Aḥmad Zayn, and Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī, 7 vols. (Cairo, 1940–68), 4:383. The text refers to the assassination of Ḥusayn, Muḥammad’s grandson, at Karbalāʾ. 107. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 116. 108. Halper 478 (unpublished). 109. Henry Malter, Saadiah Gaon: His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1921), 173, 154; Solomon Schechter, Saadyana: Geniza Fragments of Writings of R. Saadya Gaon and Others (Cambridge, 1903), 135. 110. Mishna ʿim perush rabenu Moshe ben Maymon, Seder Zeraʿim, ed. Kafiḥ, 52. 111. See T-S Misc. 36.184, in Nehemya Allony, Ha-sifriya ha-yehudit bi-mei ha-benayim: Reshimot sefarim mi-genizat Qahir, ed. Miriam Frenkel and Haggai Ben-Shammai with Moshe Sokolow (Jerusalem, 2006), 414–15, lines 7–18. 112. See T-S 10K20.9 + T-S Misc. 36.147, in Allony, Ha-sifriya, 11–19, line 52. 113. Mishna ʿim perush rabenu Moshe ben Maymon, Seder Neziqin, ed. Kafiḥ, 210. 114. S. D. Goitein, “Political Conflict and the Use of Power in the World of the Geniza,” in Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses, ed. Daniel Elazar (Washington, D.C., 1983), 169.

Chapter 2 1. See the entry in Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīkh Ḥalab, ed. Suhayl Zakkār, 12 vols. (Damascus, 1988), 3:1324–33. 2. On al-Jawwānī see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Leiden, 1943–49), 1:451; Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur: Den Supplementbänden angepasste Auflage, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1937–42), 1:626. 3. On this incident see David Morray, An Ayyubid Notable and His World: Ibn al-ʿAdīm and Aleppo as Portrayed in His Biographical Dictionary of People Associated with the City (Leiden, 1994), 51–54. 4. See EI 2, s.v. “Naḳīb al-Ashrāf,” 7:926–27 (A. Havemann). 5. See Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Māwardī, Kitāb al-aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya wa-ʾl-wilāyāt aldīniyya, ed. Aḥmad Mubārak al-Baghdādī (Kuwayt, 1989), chapter 8; English translation in al-Māwardī, The Ordinances of Government, trans. Wafaa H. Wahba (Reading, UK, 1996), 107–11. See also Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad Ibn al-Farrāʾ, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya, ed. Muḥammad Hāmid al-Fiqqī (Cairo, 1938), chapter 5. 6. See Heinz Halm, Shiʿism, trans. Janet Watson and Marian Hill, 2d ed. (Edinburgh, 2004), 47. 7. See above, Chapter 1, n. 9. 8. On this point see Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) (Philadelphia, 1967), 51. See also Jacob Liver,



230 Notes to Pages 71–80 Toledot bet David: Mi-ḥurban mamlekhet yehuda ve-ʿad le-aḥar ḥurban ha-bayit ha-sheni (Jerusalem, 1959), 37. For a similar distinction between the vague ancestral claims of Persians and the more precise genealogies of Arabs in the eighth and ninth centuries, see Roy Mottahedeh, “The Shuʿubiyah and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7 (1976), 172–74. 9. For the text, see Adolf Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), 2:68–73; Solomon Schechter, “Seder Olam Suta,” Monats­ schrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 39 (1895), 23–28. 10. See Leopold Zunz, Ha-derashot be-yisraʾel ve-hishtalshelutan ha-historit, ed. Chanoch Albeck (Jerusalem, 1954), 63–65, 307–9. See also Liver, Toledot bet David, 42–45. 11. Isaiah Gafni, Land, Center, and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity (Sheffield, 1997), 115. 12. See the sources mentioned in Liver, Toledot bet David, 42n18. 13. See 2 Kings 23:28–35; 2 Chronicles 36:1–4. Other instances of brothers listed in Seder ʿolam zuṭa include the kings Zedekiah and Josiah and the exilarchs Ḥunamar and Mar ʿUqban. 14. See Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:89–110. On this text, see above, Preface, note 1. 15. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:77. 16. Ibid., 1:196. 17. See Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-bāqiya ʿan al-qurūn al-khāliya, ed. Eduard Sachau (1878; reprint ed., Leipzig, 1923), 58–59; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad alBīrūnī, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, trans. Eduard Sachau (London, 1879), 69. 18. See al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-bāqiya, 58; al-Bīrūnī, Chronology of Ancient Nations, 68; Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 657–60, 781n2. 19. See T-S 12.138, in Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 2:131. On Ṣemaḥ, see Gil, A History of Palestine, 657–60. 20. See T-S AS 150.148, discussed in Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 96–98. 21. See MS Leiden Or. 4790, fol. 111b, printed, without identification, in Simcha Pinsker, Liqqutei qadmoniyot: Le-qorot dat benei miqra veha-liṭeraṭur shelahem (Vienna, 1860), Appendix, 53. A shorter version of the same genealogy is contained in MS Leiden Or. 4752, fol. 242a. 22. See Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:248. Another biblical codex with the same genealogical list was acquired by Jacob Saphir in Yemen; see his Even sapir, 2 vols. (1866; rpt. ed., Jerusalem, 1967), 1:18b, 2:175a. 23. See Naḥman Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim (Vienna, 1864), 111a. 24. See also Liver, Toledot bet David, 42. 25. See Mosseri I 107.2, in Moshe Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997), 2:192–93. See also the edition in B. M. Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira (Haifa, 1921), 136, which reproduces the actual layout of the manuscript.



Notes to Pages 80–83 231

26. Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:192, surmises that the first and second clauses were reversed, attributing the mistake to carelessness on the part of the copyist. The parallel passage in Kitāb al-taʾrīkh lends support to this hypothesis. 27. The final list in Kitāb al-taʾrīkh contains the names Ḥuna, Bustini, Zuṭra, Ḥunamar, Kafna, Bustani, Solomon, Isq[away], Judah, Dāwūd, Zakkay, and Dāwūd. The Geniza text has Ḥuna, Bustanay, Solomon, Isqaway, Judah, Zakkay, and David. The segment from Bustini to Bustanay in Kitāb al-taʾrīkh has apparently been elided in the Geniza text as a result of homoeoteleuton. The first of the two Dāwūds has also been omitted. 28. The names in the added sequences, unlike those in the main section, are followed by the Hebrew word beno (“his son”). 29. Abraham Ibn Ezra, commentary on Zechariah 12:8. 30. Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 49 (Hebrew), 48 (English); L. Grünhut, Die Rundreise des R. Petachjah aus Regensburg (Jerusalem and Frankfurt am Main, 1905), 9; Avraham David, “Sibbuv rabi Petaḥya me-Regensburg be-nusaḥ ḥadash,” Qobeṣ ʿal yad, n.s. 13 [23] (1996), 259, 261. 31. Adler, Itinerary, 47 (Hebrew), 48 (English). 32. Berlin MS Or. Heb. Oct. 517, fol. 64b, cited in Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:254. 33. Menachem Emanuele Hartom and Avraham David, Me-Iṭaliya li-Yerushalayim: Iggerotav shel rabi ʿOvadya mi-Berṭinoro me-Ereṣ Yisraʾel (Ramat Gan, 1997), 56. 34. See, for example, BT Ketubbot 62b. 35. Ḥayyim Yeḥiel Bornstein, Maḥloqet rav Saʿadya gaʾon u-Ven Meʾir be-qeviʿat shenot 4682–4684: Pereq meqorot seder ha-ʿibbur be-yisraʾel (Warsaw, 1904), 51. See also Ben Meir’s reference to his ancestors David, Hillel the Elder, and Judah ha-Nasi in the letter printed in Alfred Guillaume, “Further Documents on the Ben Meir Controversy,” Jewish Quarterly Review 5 (1914–15), 554. 36. See, for example, T-S 8K22.10, a memorial list with the heading “the family of our holy Rabbi,” in Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:13; and ENA 2952, which contains two lists beginning with the same phrase, in Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (1920– 22; reprint, New York, 1970), 2:50–51. 37. See Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1886–1906), 1:863. 38. Grünhut, Rundreise, 29; cf. David, “Sibbuv,” 268. 39. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 111a. It is a testimony to the overwhelming impact of Seder ʿolam zuṭa that David ben Hodaya’s genealogy incorporates—rather awkwardly, it must be noted—a sequence of nine names from that chronicle, despite the fact that David allegedly descended from an entirely different branch of the royal family. 40. Albert Harkavy, Ha-sarid veha-paliṭ mi-Sefer ha-egron ve-Sefer ha-galuy (St. Petersburg, 1891), 164, 229. 41. See the genealogies in Abraham Epstein, Kitvei Avraham Epshtayn, ed. A. M. Habermann, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1949–56), 1:55, 73, 79.



232 Notes to Pages 84–88 42. See Shlomo Morag, “Eldad Haddani’s Hebrew and the Problem of His Provenance” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 66 (1997), 223–46; David Wasserstein, “Eldad ha-Dani and Prester John,” in Prester John, the Mongols, and the Ten Lost Tribes, ed. Charles Fraser Beckingham and Bernard Hamilton (Aldershot, 1996), 213–36. 43. See ENA 2806.9 + Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fol. 33r, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:10. “Aaron the chief priest” occurs in Psalm 106:16, and “Aaron the holy one of the Lord” appears at the end of the genealogy of Ezra in Ezra 7:5. 44. See MS Sassoon 526, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:12–13; see also Bodl. MS Heb. c 50, fol. 11, ibid., 11–12; BL Or. 5535 I (a letter from Solomon ha-Kohen ben Elijah), in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:233–34; and T-S 28.5 (a letter from Amram ha-Kohen ben Aaron) in Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “A Kohen Divorces His Wife in Eleventh Century Egypt: A Geniza Study” (Hebrew), Diné Israel 5 (1974), 216, lines 47–49. 45. Adler, Itinerary, 38–39 (Hebrew), 39 (English). A concern with evidence of the direct continuities between the medieval present and the biblical past, which genealogical records such as these surely provided, is likely also behind Benjamin’s observation that Eleazar and his brothers “know how to chant the melodies as did the singers at the time when the Temple was standing.” 46. Grünhut, Rundreise, 9; David, “Sibbuv,” 259. 47. Grünhut, Rundreise, 12; David, “Sibbuv,” 261. 48. Abraham Ibn Migas, Sefer kevod Elohim: Kushṭanṭina 345, introd. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem, 1976), 124a–b. 49. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn Aḥmad Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīṣ majmaʿ al-ādāb fī muʿ jam al-alqāb, ed. Muṣṭafā Jawād, 6 vols. (Damascus, 1962–67), 5:607. 50. Ibid., 3:220. See also Abraham Ben-Jacob, “New Sources with Regard to the History of the Jews in Babylon in the 12th and 13th Centuries” (Hebrew), Zion 15 (1950), 61–62. 51. See the letter, T-S 13J35.1 + T-S 20.94r, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:37–40. Gil has identified the letter writer’s handwriting as that of Joshua ha-Kohen ben Yaʾir of Tiberias and has dated the letter to ca. 1020. 52. See the text in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:207–8. 53. See ibid., 2:208. 54. Ibid., 1:174. 55. On the exilarch Sar Shalom ben Phineas, see Appendix B, #88. 56. On the memorial lists, see Mann, Texts and Studies, 1:452–53, 466–72, 2:256–83; S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as ­Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 2:163, 3:2–6. 57. See, e.g., BL Or. 5549, fol. 1, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:8–9 (a memorial list for Palestinian geʾonim from “the house of Dosa”), and T-S 8K22.2, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:210– 211 (lists for various Karaite notables). 58. See BL Or. 5557 A, fol. 7v, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:9–10. 59. See TS 8K22.10, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:13–14. 60. See TS 8K22.2, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:210.



Notes to Pages 89–94 233

61. See the text of the poem in Ezra Fleischer, “New Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), Shalem 1 (1974), 53–74. 62. Fleischer, “New Aspects,” 57. 63. On David ben Daniel’s political career and its long-term effects on the Palestinian yeshiva, see Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, 1980), 196–212. 64. See T-S Misc. 35.35, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:521 (where the shelfmark is given as T-S Loan 35). The lion and the whelp are symbols of Judah in Genesis 49:9 (on which see more below). “The comely one” is a description of David in 1 Samuel 16:12. Both Lemuel and Qohelet are understood in rabbinic (and Karaite) exegesis to be names of Solomon; see, e.g., Abraham Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Proverbs 31:1. According to BT Moʿed Qatan 16b, Taḥkemoni, which appears in 2 Samuel 23:8, is an epithet for David. For the meaning of regem as “prince,” see Abraham Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Psalm 68:28, with reference to the usage of that word in 2 Chronicles 7:2. 65. See Bodl. MS Heb. b 11, fol. 34, in Tova Beeri, “ʿEli He-Ḥaver ben ʿAmram: A Hebrew Poet in Eleventh Century Egypt” (Hebrew), Sefunot 8 [23] (2003), 295–98. I am grateful to Raymond Scheindlin for taking the time to discuss a number of aspects of this composition with me. On ʿEli ben Amram’s career, see Elinoar Bareket, “‘He-ḥaver hameʿule’ o ‘ha-boged ha-meʿule’: Manhig shanuy be-maḥloqet ʿEli ben ʿAmram, rosh qehal ha-yerushalmim be-Fustat be-maḥaṣit ha-sheniya shel ha-meʾa ha-aḥat esre,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 23 (1998), Hebrew section, 1–27. 66. Beeri suggests identifying the subject of the poem with either David ben Hezekiah or David ben Daniel, preferring the former on the reasoning that David ben Daniel’s period in office, 1082–1094, began seven years after the last dated document written by ʿEli. See also Bareket, “‘He-ḥaver ha-meʿule,’” 19n88. 67. See Judah ben Solomon al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, ed. Y. Toporovsky (Tel Aviv, 1952), 24–27. 68. Ibid., 26–27. 69. Ibid., 16. 70. See S. M. Stern, “Some Unpublished Poems by Al-Harizi,” Jewish Quarterly Review 50 (1960), 274–76. 71. ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn Hishām, Sīrat rasūl Allāh, ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1937), 1:1–2. English translation in Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (Oxford, 1955), 3. 72. See Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110a. In Coronel’s text David ben Hodaya’s genealogy contains only thirty-nine names, but, as discussed below, one name was deliberately omitted from the sequence; counting it, the tally comes to forty. See also the ancestor list in the biblical codex copied by Elisha ben Abraham ben Benvenisti, discussed above, which contains the names of forty individuals as well. And at least one of the versions of Eldad ha-Dani’s genealogy contains forty names; see above, n. 41. 73. For a similar observation about the number of sages appearing in the list of transmitters of the Oral Law that is included in the introduction to Maimonides’ Mishneh



234 Notes to Pages 95–99 Torah, see Salo W. Baron, “The Historical Outlook of Maimonides,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 6 (1935), reprinted in Salo W. Baron, History and Jewish Historians: Essays and Addresses (Philadelphia, 1964), 152–54. 74. al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-bāqiya, 38; al-Bīrūnī, Chronology of Ancient Nations, 46. 75. See Sagit Butbul, “The Commentary of Yefet ben ʿEli the Karaite on the Book of Ruth” (Hebrew), Sefunot 8 [23] (2003), 520 (Arabic), 564 (Hebrew). 76. al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-bāqiya, 37; al-Bīrūnī, Chronology of Ancient Nations, 44. 77. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 111a. 78. For a much later example, see the Davidic lineage copied and annotated by Moshe Dayan in Yashir Moshe (1879; reprint ed., Jerusalem, 2004), i–xxx, which concludes with a curse on anyone who tries to add his name improperly to the pedigree. 79. See Mottahedeh, “Shuʿubiyah,” 167. 80. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:6–8. 81. On the recurrence of Davidic names in the ancestor lists of Karaite nesiʾim, see Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:215; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:427n32. 82. Following Gil, A History of Palestine, 545. 83. Following Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 1:109–14, 431–33. 84. Coronel, Ḥamisha qunṭeresim, 110a. 85. For the rabbinic view that Daniel was from the Davidic family, possibly on the basis of 1 Chronicles 3:1, see BT Sanhedrin 83b. 86. Grünhut, Rundreise, 29; cf. David, “Sibbuv,” 268. 87. For the text, see Zvi Malachi, Sugiyot ba-sifrut ha-ʿivrit shel yemei ha-benayim (Tel Aviv, 1971), 42–51. On the identity of Zuṭa, see Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Maimonides in Egypt: The First Stage,” in Maimonidean Studies, ed. Arthur Hyman, vol. 2 (New York, 1991), 3–30, with references to earlier hypotheses. See also Mordechai Akiva Friedman, HaRambam, ha-mashiaḥ be-Teman, veha-shemad (Jerusalem, 2002), 23, 151–52; Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Rambam, Zūṭā and the Muqaddams: A Story of Three Bans” (Hebrew), Zion 70 (2005), 473–528. 88. See Malachi, Sugiyot, 46. Corroboration of this charge can be found in T-S 16.272, a Judeo-Arabic letter from Alexandria written during the early years of Ayyubid rule in which it is reported that Zuṭa “called himself the messiah.” See the document in Miriam Frenkel, Ha-ohavim veha-nedivim: ʿIlit manhiga be-qerev yehudei Aleksandriya bi-mei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 351–58; the phrase appears on p. 352, line 31. 89. Malachi, Sugiyot, 46. 90. See Goitein, Mediterannean Society, 5:618n28. 91. For various theories concerning the mahdī in the Middle Ages, see EI 2, s.v. “Mahdī,” 5:1231–38 (W. Madelung). 92. See Jere L. Bacharach, “Laqab for a Future Caliph: The Case of the Abbasid alMahdī,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113.2 (1993), 271–74. For further discussion of the significance of the titles of the early Abbasid rulers, see Bernard Lewis, “The Regnal Titles of the First Abbasid Caliphs” in Dr. Zakir Husain Presentation Volume: Presented on His Seventy-First Birthday (New Delhi, 1968), 13–22.



Notes to Page 100 235

93. Heinz Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids, trans. Michael Bonner (Leiden, 1996), 15. For rituals associated with the names of the Fatimid caliphs, see Paula Sanders, Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany, N.Y., 1994), 27. 94. For the seals of exilarchs, see, in addition to the sources discussed below, Bornstein, Maḥloqet rav Saʿadya gaʾon, 66, and the reference to the seal of the exilarchate (ṭabaʿat nesiʾut) in T-S 13J35.1 + T-S 20.94r, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:37–40. Samuel ben Samson reports that the nasi who served as his guide in Hebron had “a seal from the ruler and from Muḥammad”; see Shraga Schultz, “Mikhtav me-rabi Shemuel ben rabi Shimson,” Ha-ṣofe le-ḥokhmat yisraʾel 14 (1930), 73. For the seal of the gaʾon Nehemiah ben Kohen Ṣedeq (fl. mid-tenth century), see Mosseri VIII 479.9, published in Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira, 133–34. Unlike the seals of members of the Davidic line considered here, Nehemiah’s was not adorned with images and bore only the legend “Nehemiah gaʾon ben gaʾon.” 95. See the translation in Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 158. 96. For the suggestion that a lion’s image appeared on the banner of the tribe of Judah, with reference to Genesis 49:9, see the sources cited in Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (1909–38; rpt. ed., Philadelphia, 1968), 3:234, 237; 6:82. The idea that the kings of Judah had pennants bearing the image of a lion is found in Cohen, Book of Tradition, 59. On the use of the lion as a symbol for the family of the exilarchs in the Byzantine “Scroll of Aḥimaʿaṣ,” see Robert Bonfil, “Myth, Rhetoric, History? A Study of the Chronicle of Ahimaʿaz” (Hebrew), in Tarbut ve-ḥevra be-toledot yisraʾel bi-mei habenayim: Qoveṣ maʾamarim le-zikhro shel Ḥayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed. Menahem BenSasson, Robert Bonfil, and Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1989), 109–14. 97. The seal is described in Shaul Shaked, “Jewish and Christian Seals of the Sassanid Period,” in Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, ed. Miriam Rosen-Ayalon (Jerusalem, 1977), 25–26, 31. A photograph of a modern impression of the seal is provided at the end of the book, plate 4, no. 3. Shaked’s reservations in that article about dating the seal to the Sasanian period are reiterated and amplified in his “Epigraphica Judaeo-Iranica,” in Studies in Judaism and Islam: Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday by His Students, Colleagues, and Friends, ed. Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben-Ami, and Norman A. Stillman (Jerusalem, 1981), 67, where he notes the late features in the seal’s wording and arrangement and suggests dating it to the tenth century. See also the concurring view of Yitzhak Naveh, cited in Moshe Beer, “A Reconstruction of Three Ancient Seals from Persia” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 52 (1983), 441n35. Beer, on the other hand, prefers an earlier dating. 98. For Heman’s ties to the family of the exilarchs, see Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 2:82–83; Menahem Zulay, “Liturgical Poems of Nehemya ben Selomo ben Heman Hannasi” (Hebrew), Yediʿot ha-makhon le-ḥeqer ha-shira ha-ʿivrit 4 (1938), 197– 246; and Naoya Katsumata, The Liturgical Poetry of Nehemiah ben Shelomoh ben Heiman ha-Nasi: A Critical Edition (Leiden, 2002), 6–8. 99. A comparison of Heman’s seal with that of a considerably earlier exilarchal dynast, Huna bar Nathan, which is also discussed in Shaked, “Epigraphica Judaeo-Iranica” (a photograph of the seal’s impression is provided at the end of the volume, plate V-a), is revealing.



236 Notes to Pages 101–105 Engraved around the top of Huna’s seal are the words “Huna bar Nathan,” with three relatively common Jewish motifs depicted below: a palm branch, an etrog, and an incense shovel. Neither the seal’s simple legend, nor its accompanying imagery, relates in any direct way to Huna’s Davidic ancestry. It is tempting to conclude that the Davidic markers in Heman’s tenth-century seal reflect an emphasis on Davidic ancestry that may have been less pronounced in Huna’s time. Iconographic evidence would thus seem to correlate with the shifts noted above in connection with naming practices and genealogies. Such a conclusion would also conform, in outline, to Shaked’s classification system, which distinguishes between “early,” i.e., pre-Islamic Jewish seals bearing only the owner’s name and in certain cases a conventional iconographic image, and “late,” i.e., Islamic-era seals that tend to be more embellished and personalized. 100. Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira, 60. 101. Ibid., 92. 102. Cohen, The Book of Tradition, 59. 103. Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira, 73. 104. Jacob Mann, “Gaonic Studies,” in Hebrew Union College Jubilee Volume (1875– 1925), ed. David Philipson et al. (Cincinnati, 1925), 257–58, referring to Mosseri IV 5r. For an edition of the text, see Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:165–67. 105. See Halper 156 (2r), discussed in Shraga Abramson, ʿInyanot be-sifrut ha-geʾonim: Meḥqarim be-sifrut ha-geʾonim u-teshuvotehem shebi-defus uve-khitvei yad (Jerusalem, 1974), 107n20. 106. Mann’s text (see above, note 104) actually has four words following Hayya’s signature: ṣedeq lanu yore arye, which may reasonably be understood to constitute a single phrase (“the lion instructs us in truth”). While this may well be a reference to the gaʾon (added by a later scribe?), there is no compelling reason to presume an underlying visual image. And as for Abramson’s manuscript (see preceding note), after careful inspection I found little basis for construing the mark appearing after Hayya’s name as the figural representation of a lion, or of any other creature for that matter. Cf. the less critical position taken in my “Cultivating Roots: The Promotion of Exilarchal Ties to David in the Middle Ages,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 29 (2005), 106. 107. See Moses ben Maimon, Qoveṣ teshuvot ha-Rambam, ed. Lichtenberg (Leipzig, 1859), pt. 3, 21–22. 108. See the letter in Gil, Eres Yisraʾel, 2:405–7. 109. See Menahem Zulay, “Liturgical Poems on Various Historical Events” (Hebrew), Yediʿot ha-makhon le-ḥeqer ha-shira ha-ʿivrit 3 (1936), 176–83. 110. On this practice see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Signature Embellishments and a Unique Method for Noting a Date” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 48 (1978), 160–63. 111. See Zulay, “Liturgical Poems on Various Historical Events,” 176. 112. Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:7. 113. For a consideration of the specific context in which the story was copied, see Moshe Gil, “The Babylonian Encounter” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 48 (1978–79), 39–41. For an entirely different evaluation of Bustanay, one that celebrates him as a noble ancestor, see the poem, discussed above, in honor of Daniel ben ʿAzarya (Fleischer, “New Aspects,” 70), in which the honoree is unabashedly praised for being “a spark of Bustanay.”



Notes to Pages 108–112 237

114. See, for example, EJ 2, s.v. “Seal, Seals,” 18:225–28, where it is presented as a fact that the exilarchate’s seal bore the image of a fly.

Chapter 3 1. On this episode and the various historical sources that describe it, see Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 2007), 604n93; Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis (New York, 1994), 24. 2. On the importance of lineage—in particular the critique of ancestral claims—in controversies over control of the Palestinian gaonate, see the observation of Menahem Ben-Sasson, “The Gaonate of R. Samuel b. Joseph Ha-Cohen Which Was ‘Like a Bath of Boiling Water’” (Hebrew), Zion 51.4 (1986), 396–97, especially n. 39. 3. On this dispute and its background see Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 118–19; Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 562–69; Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 218–23. 4. See Brody, Geonim, 138–39; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 224–32. 5. As noted in Albert Harkavy, Ha-sarid veha-paliṭ mi-Sefer ha-egron ve-Sefer ha-galuy (St. Petersburg, 1891), 167. 6. See above Chapter 2, note 36. 7. See the sources cited in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 350n210. 8. See Solomon Schechter, Saadyana: Geniza Fragments of Writings of R. Saadya Gaon and Others (Cambridge, 1903), 20; Ḥayyim Jehiel Bornstein, Maḥloqet rav Saʿadya gaʾon u-Ven Meʾir be-qeviʿat shenot 4682–4684: Pereq meqorot seder ha-ʿibbur be-yisraʾel (Warsaw, 1904), 104. 9. Harkavy, Ha-sarid veha-paliṭ, 164, 229. 10. Ibid., 229. 11. Ibid., 167. 12. Ibid., 225. 13. See the discussion in Chapters 1 and 2 above. 14. The seriousness with which such symbolic expressions of respect were regarded becomes evident in T-S 8.161, a court record from the year 1229, in which it is stated that Yeshuʿa ha-Levi ben Solomon received a certificate from inhabitants of Jerusalem affirming that there he was called to the Torah as a Levite. For documents signed first by kohanim, see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 5:620. 15. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:576. 16. For the text see B. M. Lewin, “Iggeret rabenu Hayya gaʾon le-kohanei Ifriqi,” Ginze Kedem 4 (1930), 51–54. 17. See Menahem Ben-Sasson, Ṣemiḥat ha-qehila ha-yehudit be-arṣot ha-islam: Qayrawan, 800–1057 (Jerusalem, 1996), 169–71; Ben-Sasson, “The Gaonate of R. Samuel Ha-Cohen,” 386–400. On this text, see also H. Z. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Leiden, 1974–81), 1:121–23.



238 Notes to Pages 112–119 18. On the rivalry between these two priestly families for control of the Palestinian yeshiva, see Gil, A History of Palestine, 663–65. 19. On the scope and contents of the original letter, see the introductory notes in Lewin, “Iggeret rabenu Hayya gaʾon,” 51. 20. Priestly offerings, referred to in the first stanza, were an enduring but contested expression of respect for the priesthood during the Middle Ages. An anonymous gaonic responsum dismisses them as nonobligatory outside of Palestine despite explicit rabbinic statements to the contrary. See Louis Ginzberg, Geonica, 2 vols. (New York, 1909), 2:217–18, 221. 21. For a possible allusion to this dispute in the thirteenth-century German pietist work Sefer ḥasidim, see Ben-Sasson, Ṣemiḥat ha-qehila ha-yehudit, 170; Ben-Sasson, “The Gaonate of R. Samuel Ha-Cohen,” 397–98. 22. See Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona (634–1099), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:39, lines 37–41. 23. Gil has argued that T-S 13J14.10, a fragmentary letter composed by the Palestinian gaʾon Josiah ben Aaron (d. 1025), relates to this incident as well. The extant portion of that missive denounces a rival possibly identified as a descent of Bustanay, accusing him of flouting accepted religious tradition. While the two letters were written in the same period and deal with incursions on the authority of the yeshiva, the connection between them remains uncertain. Among other problems, Joshua ha-Kohen’s accusation that his rival forged a royal pedigree does not tally with the inference that Josiah’s rival was a descendant of Bustanay. See the text in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:48–51. For discussion, see Gil, History of Palestine, 542–43; Mann, Jews in Egypt, 1:71, 2:68–69; Mann, Texts and Studies, 1:335n21, 2:46, 135. 24. On Daniel’s rivalry with Joseph ha-Kohen ben Solomon over the gaonate, see Gil, History of Palestine, 726–34. 25. ENA 3765.5, lines 1–8. See Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:679–80. 26. For a discussion of Daniel’s claim that the Maghrib fell under the jurisdiction of the exilarchate, see Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Varieties of Inter-Communal Relations in the Geonic Period,” in The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity, ed. Daniel Frank (Leiden, 1995), 23. 27. See ENA 3765.10v + T-S 18J4.6r, in Mark R. Cohen, “New Light on the Conflict over the Palestinian Gaonate, 1038–1042, and on Daniel b. ʿAzarya: A Pair of Letters to the Nagid of Qayrawan,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 1 (1976), 21–28; on the letter’s dating, see 18–19. 28. T-S K25.244; see above, Chapter 1, nn. 77–78. 29. See Ezra Fleischer, “New Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), Shalem 1 (1974), 58–60. 30. On the distinctive structural aspects of an ʿavoda, see Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur (University Park, Pa., 2005), 20–21. 31. Fleischer, “New Aspects,” 67. 32. On the political activities of David ben Daniel, see Gil, A History of Palestine, 750–74; Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), 157–212. 33. T-S Misc. 35.35, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:521.



Notes to Pages 119–131 239

34. See Bodl. MS Heb. b 11, fol. 34. 35. See the text in Naphtali Wieder, “Three Sermons for Rain Fasts from the Geniza— Two in Galilean Aramaic” (Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 54 (1985), 55–59. 36. See ibid., 25–26. 37. See Naphtali Wieder, “Le-qetaʿ ḥadash mi-Sefer ha-moʿadim le-rav Saʿadya gaʾon,” Zion 51 (1986), 129. 38. Elchanan Reiner, “ʿAliya ve-ʿaliya la-regel le-Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 1099–1517” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988), 297–98. 39. Wieder, “Three Sermons,” 41. 40. Ibid., 58. 41. See Gil, A History of Palestine, 708–9. 42. See CUL Or. 1080 J 89, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:550–53. 43. See the text, T-S 10K7.1, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:391–413. 44. Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:401–3. 45. For the notion of “counter-history” as used here, see Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, 1993), 36–49. Funkenstein writes: “[Counter-history’s] function is polemical. [Its] method consists of the systematic exploitation of the adversary’s most trusted sources against their grain. . . . [Its] aim is the distortion of the adversary’s self-image, of his identity, through the deconstruction of his memory.” 46. On mathālib literature, see Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern, trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols. (London, 1964), 1:176–77; EI 2, s.v. “Mathālib,” 6:828–29 (Charles Pellat). 47. On this episode see Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 439–40; Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 1:237–40. 48. See also Maimonides’ reference to the controversy in a letter to his pupil Joseph ben Judah Ibn Shimʿon in Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Isaac Shailat, 2 vols. (Ma‘aleh Adumim, 1987), 1:296 (Arabic), 308 (Hebrew). He writes that if not for Joseph’s intervention, “the exilarch would have been in [Samuel ben ʿEli’s] hands like a chick in the claws of a vulture.” 49. Simḥa Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli and His Contemporaries” (Hebrew), pt. 2, Tarbiẓ 1.2 (1930), 65–66. 50. Ibid., 67. Cf. Lewin, Iggeret rav Sherira, 92–93. 51. Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 38–39 (Hebrew), 39 (English). 52. Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli,” pt. 3, Tarbiẓ 1.3 (1930), 30. 53. On the exilarchate’s move to Mosul in the twelfth century, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 439.

Chapter 4 1. For examples of documents bearing Nathan’s signature, see ENA 4020.6, in Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:313–16;

240 Notes to Pages 131–135 Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fol. 69, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:316–17; T-S 13J31.1, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:318–19; Mosseri V 341.1 + T-S 10J15.10, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:322–23. 2. On this affair see Mark R. Cohen, “New Light on the Conflict over the Palestinian Gaonate, 1038–1042, and on Daniel b. ʿAzarya: A Pair of Letters to the Nagid of Qayrawan,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 1 (1976), 1–34. 3. See the letter, ENA 3765.10v + T-S 18J4.6r, in Cohen, “New Light,” 21–28; on the letter’s dating, see 18–19. 4. Cohen, “New Light,” 21–22 (Hebrew), 24–25 (English). 5. DK 230.3 (formerly DK 230 h–j), described in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (“India Book”) (Leiden, 2008), 297–98; for the background to this letter see 288–90. The encomium to Mevorakh is quoted in Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Ha-Rambam, ha-mashiaḥ be-Teman, veha-shemad (Jerusalem, 2002), 13–14. 6. See Shraga Abramson, “R. Judah Halevi’s Letter on His Emigration to the Land of Israel” (Hebrew), Kiryat Sefer 29 (1953–54), 133–44; the citations are from page 138. For an additional fragment from the St. Petersburg collection, which fills in twenty-one lines of text missing from Abramson’s edition, see Joseph Yahalom, “The Immigation of Rabbi Judah Halevi to Eretz Israel in Vision and Riddle” (Hebrew), Shalem 7 (2001), 42–45. For an English translation of most of the letter (though not the section containing the epithets cited here) as well as an analysis of its contents, see Raymond Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage (Oxford, 2007), 111–16, 155–58. 7. For this as a designation of the messiah, on the basis of Isaiah 9:5, see Deuteronomy Rabbah 1:20. For the currency of this tradition in the environment under discussion, see Maimonides’ reference to it in Moses Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen: The Arabic Original and the Three Hebrew Versions, ed. A. Halkin, trans. B. Cohen (New York, 1952), 86 (Arabic); Abraham Halkin and David Hartman, Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides (Philadelphia, 1985), 124. 8. See the text in Ḥayyim Schirmann, Shirim ḥadashim min ha-geniza (Jerusalem, 1965), 135. In his notes, Schirmann comments on the poem’s unusually bold language. 9. See, for example, T-S 8J22.25, published in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:40–41. 10. See Jacob Mann, “Ha-tenuʿot ha-meshiḥiyot bi-mei masaʿei ha-ṣelav ha-rishonim,” Ha-Tequfa 23 (1925), 243–61; 24 (1928), 335–58 11. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 5:391–406. An earlier version of this material appeared in Goitein, “ ‘Meeting in Jerusalem’: Messianic Expectations in the Letters of the Cairo Geniza,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 4 (1979), 47–57. 12. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:397. 13. See Friedman’s survey of twelfth-century messianism in Ha-Rambam, 9–49; the quote appears on page 49. 14. See Gerson D. Cohen, “Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim,” in Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Culture (Philadelphia, 1991), 274, for a suggestive, if somewhat speculative attempt to connect Maimonides’ account of a messianic movement in



Notes to Pages 135–137 241

Leon, Spain (thus, according to Cohen), with the reported presence in the same town of the Davidic dynast Ḥiyya al-Dāʾūdī. For Maimonides’ account, see Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 102 (Arabic); Halkin and Hartman, Crisis and Leadership, 130 (English). On Ḥiyya alDāʾūdī, see Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) (Philadelphia, 1967), 45 (Hebrew), 217 (English). See also Moshe Gil’s remarks about the messianic aura surrounding David ben Daniel in A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 773–74. Neither historian, however, places these isolated incidents in the context of a more general intensification of claims to Davidic lineage. 15. On the various manifestations of Davidic leadership in the medieval Near East as an expression of messianic yearnings, see the observations in Menahem Ben-Sasson, “The SelfGovernment of the Jews in Muslim Countries in the 7–12th Centuries” (Hebrew), in Qehal yisraʾel: Ha-shilṭon ha-ʿaṣmi ha-yehudi le-dorotav. Kerakh bet: Yemei ha-benayim veha-ʿet haḥadasha ha-muqdemet, ed. Avraham Grossman and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem, 2004), 20. 16. See the text in Tova Beeri, “ʿEli He-Ḥaver ben ʿAmram: A Hebrew Poet in Eleventh Century Egypt” (Hebrew), Sefunot 8 [23] (2003), 296–98. The subject’s name was David—there is some ambiguity as to which eleventh-century David, however—and the conceit of the poem is its deliberate identification of him with his biblical namesake, who happens also to be the source of the subject’s genealogical distinction. Extending the metaphoric identification of the eleventh-century David with his royal ancestor, the reference to future designation alludes to the eschatological role promised to someone from King David’s line (or, alternatively, to a revivified King David himself). 17. On Obadiah see Joshua Prawer, “The Autobiography of Obadyah the Norman, a Convert to Judaism at the Time of the First Crusade,” Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 1, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, 1979), 110–34. For the text of his autobiographical “scroll,” see Norman Golb, “The Scroll of Obadiah the Proselyte” (Hebrew), in Meḥqerei ʿedot u-geniza, ed. Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben-Ami, and Norman A. Stillman (Jerusalem, 1981), 95–106. 18. Golb, “The Scroll of Obadiah the Proselyte,” 103. 19. See the Arabic text in Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 88–90. Maimonides’ assertion that the messiah’s genealogy will be demonstrated by his actions, maintained in medieval Hebrew translations of the text, is obscured in modern English versions. Boaz Cohen, in his translation of the Arabic text edited by Halkin, renders the last clause as follows: “He will prove by means of miracles and wonders that he is the true Messiah” (xvii). The same formulation appears in Halkin’s translation as well; see Halkin and Hartman, Crisis and Leadership, 125. 20. See Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 78 (Arabic); Halkin and Hartman, Crisis and Leadership, 121. On the possible motivation for Maimonides’ specification here and elsewhere that the messiah must be a descendant of David through Solomon, see Halkin and Hartman, Crisis and Leadership, 144n204; Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, xxviii n. 274; Iggerot le-rabenu Moshe ben Maymon: Ha-maqor ha-ʿaravi ve-tirgum le-ʿivrit, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem, 1972), 47n100. 21. For studies of medieval messianism, see Abba Hillel Silver, A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel: From the First through the Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1927);



242 Notes to Pages 138–140 Joseph Sarachek, The Doctrine of the Messiah in Medieval Jewish Literature, 2d ed. (New York, 1968); Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2d rev. ed., 18 vols. (New York and Philadelphia, 1952–83), 5:138–208; Cohen, “Messianic Postures.” For a persuasive critique of Cohen’s analysis, see Elisheva Carlebach, “Between History and Hope: Jewish Messianism in Ashkenaz and Sepharad,” Third Annual Lecture of the Victor J. Selmanovitz Chair of Jewish History (New York, 1998). 22. For Goitein’s characterization of such expressions as “popular messianism” see Mediterranean Society, 5:401. 23. The letter, CUL Or. 1080 J 225, is quoted in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:393 (where it is identified as Or. 1080 J 255). 24. See T-S 8J23.27, quoted in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:394–95. 25. See T-S 20.19, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:392–97. Gil suggests that the nasi in question may be the Karaite Hezekiah ben Solomon, but see S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), in Ha-yishuv be-Ereṣ Yisraʾel be-reshit ha-islam uvi-tequfat ha-ṣalbanim le-or kitvei ha-geniza, ed. Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1980), 51–55, and Cohen, “New Light,” 9. 26. See T-S Misc. 35.28, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:18–21 (identified there as T-S Loan 28). 27. Joel L. Kraemer, “On Maimonides’ Messianic Posture,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 2, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, 1984), 123. 28. For Saʿadya’s apocalyptic messianism, see Dov Schwartz, Ha-raʿayon ha-meshiḥi ba-hagut ha-yehudit bi-mei ha-benayim (Ramat Gan, 1997), 28–45. See also Arthur Marmorstein, “The Doctrine of Redemption in Saadya’s Theological System,” in Saadya Studies: In Commemoration of the One Thousandth Anniversary of the Death of R. Saadya Gaon, ed. Erwin I. J. Rosenthal (Manchester, 1943); Salo W. Baron, “Saadia’s Communal Activities,” in Saadia Anniversary Volume (New York, 1943), 60. 29. See the text in Yehuda Even-Shemuel, Midreshei geʾula: Pirqei ha-apoqolipsa hayehudit me-ḥatimat ha-Talmud ha-bavli ve-ʿad reshit ha-elef ha-shishi (Jerusalem, 1954), 135–41; B. M. Lewin, Oṣar ha-geʾonim: Teshuvot geʾonei Bavel u-ferushehem ʿal pi seder haTalmud, 13 vols. (Haifa and Jerusalem, 1928–43), vol. 6, Sukkah, Responsa, no. 194, pp. 72–75; Abraham ben Azriel, Sefer ʿarugat ha-bosem, ed. Ephraim E. Urbach, 4 vols. (Jerusalem, 1939–63), 1:256–63. 30. For discussions of Karaite messianism, see Fred Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, S.C., 2004), 66–72; Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004), 165–66, 197–98; and Yoram Erder, “The Negation of the Exile in the Messianic Doctrine of the Karaite Mourners of Zion,” Hebrew Union College Annual 68 (1997), 109–40. 31. Cited in Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature (New Haven, Conn., 1952), 120–21. According to Nemoy the “two women” refer to the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita. On the practice of prognostic exegesis among the Jerusalem Karaites, with special reference to its apocalyptic dimensions, see Frank, Search Scripture Well, 16–18. 32. Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove, 22–25. 33. This point is argued in Ben-Zion Dinaburg (Dinur), “ʿAliyato shel rabi Yehuda ha-levi le-Ereṣ Yisraʾel veha-tesisa he-meshiḥit be-yamav,” in Minḥa le-David: Qoveṣ



Notes to Pages 140–144 243

maʾamarim be-ḥokhmat yisraʾel mugash le-yovel ha-shivʿim shel David Yellin me-et ḥaverav, yedidav u-mekhabedav (Jerusalem, 1935), 157–82. 34. Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove, 58, 60–61. 35. See Ḥayyim Schirmann, Ha-shira ha-ʿivrit bi-Sefarad uve-Provans, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1954–56), 1:480; English translation and discussion in Raymond Scheindlin, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel and the Soul (Philadelphia, 1991), 108–13. 36. See Dov Jarden, Shirei ha-qodesh le-rabi Yehuda ha-levi, 4 vols. (Jerusalem, 1978– 85), 3:827; English translation in Scheindlin, The Gazelle, 71. And see ibid., 247n10 for other poems by Halevi that address messianic expectations involving the year 1068. 37. See Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 1–49. 38. On the adaptation in this work of elements of esoteric Ismāʿīlī theology as a means of defending rabbinic Judaism, see Ronald C. Kiener, “Jewish Ismāʿīlism in Twelfth Century Yemen: R. Nethanel ben al-Fayyūmī,” Jewish Quarterly Review 74.3 (1984), 249–66. 39. Mishna ʿim perush rabenu Moshe ben Maymon, Seder Neziqin, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafiḥ, 216. 40. Ibid. 41. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot melakhim u-milḥamotehem, 11:1. 42. Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven, Conn., 1980), 450. 43. Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 4; Halkin and Hartman, Crisis and Leadership, 96. 44. In this connection it is also worth noting the recent suggestion by Israel Jacob Yuval that Maimonides viewed himself as a “second Moses” whose life’s work was dedicated to preparing the way for the imminent arrival of the messiah; see his “Moses Redivivus: Maimonides as a ‘Helper to the King’ Messiah” (Hebrew), Zion 72 (2007), 161–88. 45. See Yehezkel Luger, Tefilat ha-ʿamida le-ḥol ʿal pi ha-geniza ha-qahirit (Jerusalem, 2001), 151, and the references to textual variations; Solomon Schechter, “Geniza Specimens,” Jewish Quarterly Review o.s. 10 (1898), 657, 659. 46. Luger, Tefilat ha-ʿamida, 159–60; Saʿadya ben Joseph, Siddur rav Saʿadya gaʾon: Kitāb jāmiʿ al-ṣalawāt waʾl-tasābiḥ, ed. I. Davidson, S. Assaf, and B. I. Joel (Jerusalem, 1941), 18. Compare Jacob Mann, “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Order of Service,” Hebrew Union College Annual 2 (1925), 310. For an analysis of this motif, see Reuven Kimmelman, “The Messiah of the Amidah: A Study in Comparative Messianism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 116.2 (1997), 313–20. 47. See Siddur rav Saʿadya, 367. 48. See T-S 6J1.24, mentioned in Elinoar Bareket, Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999), 18. 49. Mann, “Genizah Fragments,” 336. 50. See Stefan C. Reif, Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy (Berlin, 2006), 132n12. See also the observations of Avi Shmidman regarding the tendency to embellish the third benediction of the Grace after Meals with messianic themes, in his “Birkhot ha-mazon ha-mefuyaṭot min ha-geniza ha-qahirit: Mavo u-mahadura madaʿit” (Ph.D. diss., Bar Ilan University, 2009), 265–67.

244 Notes to Pages 144–148 51. See the responsum in Louis Ginzberg, Ginzei Schechter, 3 vols. (New York, 1928), 2:161–65. 52. See the text in Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 2:100–102. See also Frank, Search Scripture Well, 197. 53. See Yosef Yahalom, “On the Validity of Literary Works as Historical Sources” (Hebrew), Cathedra 11 (1979), 130–33. 54. Frank, Search Scripture Well, 194–97. 55. Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:102; Frank, Search Scripture Well, 197 56. Judah ben Solomon al-Ḥarīzī, Taḥkemoni, ed. Y. Toporovsky (Tel Aviv, 1952), 216. 57. See Raymond Scheindlin, “Al-Harizi’s Astrologer: A Document of Jewish-­ Islamic Relations,” Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations 1 (1993), 165–75; Ross Brann, Power in the Potrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century ­Islamic Spain (Princeton, N.J., 2002), 140–59. 58. Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 120 (English). 59. Avraham David, “Sibbuv rabi Petaḥya me-Regensburg be-nusaḥ ḥadash,” Qobeṣ ʿal yad, n.s. 13 [23] (1996), 257–58. 60. On messianic movements in the seventh and eighth centuries, see Steven Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, N.J., 1995), 47–89; Steven Wasserstrom, “The ʿĪsāwiyya Revisited,” Studia Islamica 75 (1992), 57– 80; Israel Friedlander, “Jewish-Arabic Studies,” Jewish Quarterly Review 1 (1910–11), 183–215; 2 (1911–12), 481–516; 3 (1912–13), 235–300. On messianic movements in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, see Mann, “Ha-tenuʿot ha-meshiḥiyot,” and Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 241–60. 61. See T-S 16.272, in Miriam Frenkel, Ha-ohavim veha-nedivim: ʿIlit manhiga beqerev yehudei Aleksandriya bi-mei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 351–58. The letter also applies to Zuṭa the eschatological title al-muqtadir (“the all-powerful”). 62. See Golb, “The Scroll of Obadiah the Proselyte,” 100–101. 63. On Obadiah’s evident interest in Jewish messianism generally, see Jacob Mann, “Obadya, Prosélyte normand converti au judaïsme et sa Méguilla décrivant des évènements survenus en Orient au temps des croisades,” Revue des études juives 89 (1930), 250; Prawer, “Autobiography,” 128–29, 134; S. D. Goitein, “ʿObadyah, a Norman Proselyte,” Journal of Jewish Studies 4 (1953), 75, 84. 64. See Samawʾa l ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī, Ifḥām al-yahūd: Silencing the Jews, ed. and trans. Moshe Perlmann (New York, 1964), 88–91 (Arabic), 72–73 (English). On the identification of Menaḥem ben Solomon ibn al-Rūḥī, mentioned in Samawʾa l’s text, with the Menahem described by Obadiah, see Mann, “Ha-tenuʿot ha-meshiḥiyot,” 344–49; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 427. Note that in Samawʾa l’s text, written in Arabic script, the difference between the two names amounts to a single diacritical dot. 65. Samawʾa l uses the word qāʾim. On the application of this and other Islamic terms associated with the mahdī to the Jewish messiah, see below. 66. Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 51–53 (Hebrew), 55–57 (English).



Notes to Pages 148–154 245

67. For views supporting the identification of Menahem ben Solomon and David alRoʾi, see Mann, “Tenuʿot meshiḥiyot,” 344–49; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 427. For views rejecting the identification, see Goitein, “ʿObadyah,” 79; Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 19–21. 68. On the Mahdids, see G. R. Smith, The Ayyubids and Early Rasulids in the Yemen (567–694/1173–1295), 2 vols. (London, 1974–78), 2:56–62. 69. See the discussion in Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 42–46. 70. Manuscripts of the letter contain two versions of this section, a succinct and an expanded one, and scholarly opinion is divided as to which is the original. See the various views that are cited in Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 53n18. In Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, xxxii, Halkin argues that the longer version is the more authentic, but in Crisis and Leadership, 147n257, he writes that “weighty reasons support the belief that the succinct account is the original in the epistle.” 71. See Bodl. MS Heb. f 56, fols. 13v–19r, in Moshe Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel bi-tequfat ha-geʾonim, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997), 2:228–34; S. D. Goitein, “A Report on Messianic Troubles in Baghdad in 1120–1121,” Jewish Quarterly Review 43 (1952), 57–76. 72. Goitein, “Report on Messianic Troubles,” 57. 73. Ibid., 60–61. 74. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 421–22. 75. See, e.g., the story of Neṭira in Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:33–40. Both episodes are discussed in Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 70–72. 76. See, e.g., Mann, “Ha-tenuʿot ha-meshiḥiyot”; Jacob Mann, “A Second Supplement to ‘The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs,’” Hebrew Union College Annual 3 (1926), 289, reprinted in the 1970 edition of Jews in Egypt, 2:463–64. 77. See Stephen Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism, and Magic: A Sociological Analysis of Jewish Religious Movements (Chapel Hill, 1982), 55–61; the passage cited appears on page 57. 78. See also the balanced position in Joshua Prawer, “Social Classes in the Crusader States: The ‘Minorities,’” in A History of the Crusades, 6 vols., ed. Kenneth M. Setton (Madison, 1969–89), 5:95–97. 79. On the interpenetration of Jewish messianic and Islamic mahdist ideas during the seventh and eighth centuries, see Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 47–71; Wasserstrom, “The ʿĪsāwiyya Revisited”; Friedlander, “Jewish-Arabic Studies.” 80. See Abdulaziz Sachedina, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism (Albany, 1981); EI 2, s.v. “Mahdī,” 5:1230–38 (Wilfred Madelung). 81. The text: T-S Ar. 6.14. See the discussion in Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 202. 82. See Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:8–9. 83. Judah ben Samuel (Halevi), Kitāb al-radd waʾl-dalīl fī al-dīn al-dhalīl (Al-Kitāb al-Khazarī), ed. David Z. Baneth and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem, 1977), 143 (ashraf al-nās); 137 (al-mashiaḥ al-muntaẓar). 84. See Abraham ben Moses, Perush rabenu Avraham ben ha-Rambam z” l ʿal Bereshit u-Shemot, ed. E. Y. Wiesenberg (London, 1959), 203, 205 (explicating Genesis 49:10); Moses ben Maimon, Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 78. 85. See T-S Ar. 46.125 and T-S Ar. 46.77, described in Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 201.

246 Notes to Pages 154–156 86. See Salmon ben Yeruḥim, The Arabic Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham the Karaite on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42–72, ed. Lawrence Marwick (Philadelphia, 1956), 113, commenting on Psalm 72:4. 87. Mishna ʿim perush rabenu Moshe ben Maymon, Seder Neziqin, ed. Kafiḥ, 207. 88. Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 78. 89. See Bodl. MS Heb. d 57, fol. 95. The beginning of the text, reproduced in Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1886–1906), 2:169, should be corrected to read: qāla al-muʾallif inna baʿda mā takallamnā wa-sayyarnā . . . (“The author said: After having discussed and related …”). On the development and significance of the title al-qāʾim almuntaẓar in Shīʿī circles see Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 59. 90. For rabbinic sources that emphasize that the redeemer, having made himself known to his followers, will be concealed only to reappear at the time of redemption, see David Berger, “Three Typological Themes in Early Jewish Messianism: Messiah Son of Joseph, Rabbinic Calculations, and the Figure of Armilus,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 10 (1985), 142, especially n. 8. 91. See Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:394, line 29; Gil, Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel, 2:9. 92. On the muʿammarūn generally, as well as their role in Shīʿī apologetics, see EI 2, s.v. “Muʿammar,” 7:258–59 (G. H. A. Juynboll). 93. See Gil, Be-malkhut Yishma‘el, 3:9. 94. On Joseph ha-Levi ben Ḥalfon, see Sheʾerit Yosef: Piyyuṭei rabi Yosef ha-levi heḥaver, ed. Shulamit Elizur (Jerusalem, 1994), 14–16; for his piyyuṭ, see 102, line 9. The same Joseph also had direct personal contact with the subject of messianic expectations: he served as a court clerk under the nasi David ben Daniel and may have been one of his Egyptian supporters. On the connection between the two, see T-S 20.31, a deed drawn up in Fustat in the spring of 1092 that acknowledges David as exilarch, published in Schechter, Saadyana, 81n2. For discussion of this document see Gil, A History of Palestine, 760. 95. See S. M. Stern, Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1983), 94. 96. Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community (Leiden, 1993), 21. See also her observations regarding “Jewish adoption of Muslim eschatological traditions and images,” 24–25. For a similar conclusion, see Friedman, Ha-Rambam, 112. 97. Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 84. 98. On this work see Alexander Marx, “The Correspondence between the Rabbis of Southern France and Maimonides about Astrology,” Hebrew Union College Annual 3 (1926), 311–35. For a recent argument that the letter has been misattributed to Maimonides, see Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford, 2005), 494–501. 99. See Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Shailat, 2:489. 100. See Stern, Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism, 74 (Arabic), 65 (English). On this and similar works intended to defame the Ismāʿīlīs, see 56–64. Stern notes that despite the text’s obviously polemical character its author had a good grasp of the way initiates were introduced to Ismāʿīlī doctrine.



Notes to Pages 156–163 247

101. See Yefet ben ‘Eli, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Jephet ibn Ali the Karaite, ed. D. S. Margoliouth (Oxford, 1889), 128. 102. On biblical citations in al-Kirmānī’s works in general, see Paul Kraus, “Hebräische und syrische Zitate in ismailitischen Schriften,” Der Islam 19 (1931), 241–63. 103. The letter, T-S 13J31.5, is partially published in Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:84–85. See also S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon” (Hebrew), in Hayishuv be-Ereṣ Yisraʾel be-reshit ha-islam uvi-tequfat ha-ṣalbanim le-or kitvei ha-geniza, ed. Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem, 1980), 150; Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 1:455n779, 594f. 104. See T-S K25.244. On the complex relations between Daniel ben ʿAzarya, ʿEli ben Amram, and Abraham ha-Kohen Ibn Furāt, see Elinoar Bareket, “‘He-ḥaver hameʿule’ o ‘ha-boged ha-meʿule’: Manhig shanuy be-maḥloqet ʿEli ben ʿAmram, rosh qehal ha-yerushalmim be-Fustat be-maḥaṣit ha-sheniya shel ha-meʾa ha-aḥat esre,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 23 (1998), 1–27 (Hebrew section) 105. See the letter, T-S 13J27.5v + T-S 13J13.13v, in Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 2:742–44. On Yefet’s supervision of “the market” see Gil, A History of Palestine, 588–91. 106. See MS Heb. b. 11, fol. 34. 107. That David is indeed to be taken as the name of one of ‘Eli ben Amram’s contemporaries can be deduced from a comparison of this text to others by the same poet in which a similar structure is followed. See, for example, ENA 3765.8–9, published in Beeri, “‘Eli He-Ḥaver ben ‘Amram,” 292–95; Mann, Jews in Egypt, 2:74–77. 108. See Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel, 3:558, along with the emendations suggested in Wieder, “Three Sermons,” 43n3. 109. See the text of the letter in Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 109–11. For the full Hebrew text of the biography with French translation, see Adolf Neubauer, “Une pseudobiographie de Moïse Maïmonide,” Revue des études juives 4 (1882), 173–88. 110. See, for example, Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 430; Epistle to Yemen, ed. Halkin, 108–9; Aaron Aescoly, Ha-tenuʿot ha-meshiḥiyot be-yisraʾel, 2 vols. (1956; rev. ed., Jerusalem, 1987), 1:208–9. Walter J. Fischel, “Isfahān: The Story of a Jewish Community in Persia,” in The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume: Studies in History and Philology (New York, 1953), 116; Yitzhak Baer, “Eine jüdische Messiaspprophetie auf das Jahr 1186 un der 3. Kreuzzug,” Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 70 (1926), 155–65.

Chapter 5 1. See the text edited as Kitāb al-ʿarab aw al-radd ʿalā al-shuʿūbiyya, in Rasāʾil albulaghāʾ, ed. Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (Cairo, 1946), 344–77; the passage appears on 345. 2. Roy Mottahedeh, “The Shuʿubiyah and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7 (1976), 180. On the shuʿūbiyya controversy see also H. A. R. Gibb, “The Social Significance of the Shuʿūbiya,” in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, ed. Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk (Boston, 1962), 62–73; Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern, trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols. (London, 1964), 1:137–63.



248 Notes to Pages 164–167 3. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim Ibn Qutayba, ʿUyūn al-akhbār, ed. Aḥmad Zakī al-ʿAdawī, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1925–30), 2:228. 4. On this process, see Richard W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, Mass., 1979). 5. On policies toward the mawālī, which were at times comparable to those governing the dhimmī populations, see ʿAbd al-Husain Zarrinkub, “The Arab Conquest of Iran and Its Aftermath,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. R. N. Frye (Cambridge, 1975), 4:38–43. 6. See Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980); D. C. Dennet, Conversion and Poll-Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, 1950). 7. On this proverb and its interpretation by classical writers, see Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997), 18–19. 8. See, e.g., Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, Kitāb al-ʿiqd al-farīd, ed. Aḥmad Amīn, Aḥmad Zayn, and Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī, 7 vols. (Cairo, 1940–68), 3:404; Abū ʿUthmān ʿUmar ibn Bishr al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Bayān waʾl-tabyīn, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1968), 2:33; Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaʿqūb, Taʾrīkh al-Yaʿqūbī, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1960), 2:110. See also Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:72. 9. Aḥmad Ibn Fāris al-Qazwīnī, al-Ṣaḥibī fī fiqh al-lugha al-ʿarabiyya wa-masāʾilihā wa-sunan al-ʿarab fī kalāmihā, ed. Aḥmad Ḥasan Basaj (Beirut, 1997), 19–20. On the untranslatable quality of the Qurʾā n as a sign of its literary perfection, see too ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Ṣaqr (Cairo, 1954), 15–16. English translation in Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:196–97. 10. Ibn Fāris, al-Ṣaḥibī, 43. 11. Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥuṣrī, Kitāb zahr al-ādāb wa-thamar al-albāb, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Bajāwī, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1970), 1:402–3. 12. Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān, 10. 13. See Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Inbāh ʿalā qabāʾil al-ruwāh, ed. Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī (Beirut, 1985), 12; Mottahedeh, “The Shuʿubiyah,” 171. 14. Ibid., 170. 15. Ibn Fāris, al-Sāhibī, 43. 16. See ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad al-Thaʿālibī, Kitāb fiqh al-lugha wa-asrār alʿarabiyya, ed. Yāsīn al-Ayyūbī (Sidon and Beirut, 1999), 2. 17. See Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad ʿUmar, 11 vols. (Cairo, 2001), 3:275. I owe this reference to Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), 225. 18. See H. T. Norris, “Shuʿūbiyyah in Arabic Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany, T. M. Johnstone, J. D. Latham, R. B. Serjeant, and G. Rex Smith (Cambridge, 1990), 38. 19. For the Arabic text see ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, Nawādir al-Makhṭūṭāt, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1973–75), 1:246–54. For background and an English translation, see James T. Monroe, The Shuʿūbiyya in al-Andalus: The Risāla of Ibn García and Five Refutations (Berkeley, 1970). 20. Monroe, The Shuʿūbiyya in al-Andalus, 12–13.



Notes to Pages 167–172 249

21. al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-bayān, 3:14. On the anti-shuʿūbī thrust of this work, see Charles Pellat, The Life and Works of Jāḥiẓ, trans. D. M. Hawke (Berkeley, 1969), 100–111. 22. Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, Kitāb al-ʿiqd al-farīd, 3:404–15. For an English translation, see Bernard Lewis, Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. (New York, 1987), 2:202–3. 23. Monroe, The Shuʿūbiyya in al-Andalus, 27. 24. For the view that this work is an expression of Nabataean shuʿūbiyya, see Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:146; Norris, “Shuʿūbiyyah in Arabic Literature,” 40–41. 25. Monroe, The Shuʿūbiyya in al-Andalus, 25. 26. Ibid., 27. 27. See Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn Ḥamdūn, al-Tadhkira al-ḥamdūniyya, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās and Bakr ʿAbbās, 10 vols. (Beirut, 1983–96), 2:70–71; see M. J. Kister and M. Plessner, “Notes on Caskel’s Ǧamharat an-nasab,” Oriens 25–26 (1976), 50. 28. See Ibn al-Rūmī, Dīwān Ibn al-Rūmī, ed. Ḥusayn Naṣṣār, 6 vols. (Cairo, 1973– 81), 1:150–51. The translation is based on Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism, 111. 29. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:176. See also Shawkat M. Toorawa, Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr and Arabic Writerly Culture: A Ninth-Century Bookman in Baghdad (London, 2005), 84. 30. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:179. 31. See Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq Ibn al-Nadīm, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture, ed. and trans. Bayard Dodge, 2 vols. (New York, 1970), 1:112, line 19. 32. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim Ibn Qutayba, Faḍl al-ʿarab waʾl-tanbīh ʿalā ʿulūmihā, ed. Walīd Maḥmūd Khāliṣ (Abu Dhabi, 1998), 46–47; see also the version in Abū Nuwās, Dīwān Abī Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hāniʾ al-Ḥakamī, ed. Ewald Wagner and Gregor Schoeler, 6 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1958–2006), 3:319–20. 33. On this see Sarah Bowen Savant, “Isaac as the Persians’ Ishmael: Pride and the PreIslamic Past in Ninth and Tenth Century Islam,” Comparative Islamic Studies 2.1 (2006), 5–25. 34. Monroe, The Shuʿūbiyya in al-Andalus, 24–25. 35. Ibid., 26. 36. ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. Charles Pellat, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1965–79), 1:281. 37. Toorawa, Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr, 84. 38. See the text in Ashtiany et al., ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres, 279–80. 39. Muḥammad Taqī Bahār, ed., Tārīkhi-i Sīstān (Tehran, 1935). For English translation see Milton Gold, trans., The Tārikh-e Sistān (Rome, 1976). On this work see Julie Scott Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999), 108–36. 40. See C. E. Bosworth, “The Tahirids and Arabic Culture,” Journal of Semitic Studies 14.1 (1969), 48. See also C. E. Bosworth, “The Development of Persian Culture under the Early Ghaznavids,” Iran 6 (1968), 33–44. On the resurgence of national consciousness under the Buyids, see Wilfred Madelung, “The Assumption of the Title Shahanshah by the Buyids and the Reign of the Daylam (Dawlat al-Daylam),” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 28 (1969), 84–87.



250 Notes to Pages 172–178 41. See Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-bāqiya ʿan al-qurūn alkhāliya, ed. Eduard Sachau (1878; reprint ed., Leipzig, 1923), 87; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, trans. Eduard Sachau (London, 1879), 45. 42. See Vladimir Minorsky, “The Older Preface to the Shah-nama,” Studi orientalistici in onore de Giorgio Levi Della Vida, 2 vols. (Rome, 1956), 2:159–79. 43. See Bosworth, “The Tahirids and Arabic Culture,” 49–50; C. E. Bosworth, “The Interaction of Arabic and Persian Literature and Culture in the 10th and Early 11th Centuries,” al-Abhath (1978–79), 59. 44. Amikam Elad, “Aspects of the Transition from the Umayyad to the ʿAbbasid Caliphate,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 19 (1995), 125–27. 45. See Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:132; Elad, “Aspects of the Transition,” 126. 46. On the ancient roots of this tradition see Maya Shatzmiller, The Berbers and the Islamic State: The Marinid Experience in Pre-Protectorate Morocco (Princeton, N.J., 2000), 18–19. 47. On this work see ibid., 5–13. 48. See Évariste Lévi-Provençal, “Les ‘Memoire’ de ʿAbd Allāh, dernier roi zīrīde de Grenade, Fragments publiés d’après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque d’al-Qarawīyīn à Fès avec une introduction et traduction française,” Al-Andalus 3 (1935), 245; Shatzmiller, Berbers, 24. 49. Shatzmiller, Berbers, 24. 50. See Maribel Fierro, “The Ansaris, Nasir al-Din, and the Nasrids in al-Andalus,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31 (2006), 232–41. 51. West. Coll. Misc. 102, cited in Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fāṭimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (1920–22; reprint, New York, 1970), 1:175, 2:210. 52. See T-S Misc. 35.20 (formerly Loan 20), in Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (1931–35; reprint, New York, 1972), 1:404–8. 53. T-S 20.15, in Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 1:408–9. 54. On the pesiqa, see Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, N.J., 2006), 220ff.; S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–94), 106, 122. 55. Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa al-thāmina, ed. Muḥammad Sayyid Jād al-Ḥaqq, 5 vols. (Cairo, 1966–67), 4:396–97. On the likelihood that Nafīs was a Karaite, see A. N. Poliak, “Nafis ben David and Saʿd ad-Dawla” (Hebrew), Zion 3 (1938), 84–85. 56. See T-S 13J35.1 + T-S 20.94r, in Moshe Gil, Ereṣ Yisraʾel ba-tequfa ha-muslemit harishona, 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:37–40. 57. On the development of genealogy as a discipline, see Zoltán Szombathy, The Roots of Arabic Genealogy: A Study in Historical Anthropology (Piliscsaba, 2003); Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography, 2d rev. ed. (Leiden, 1968), 100.



Notes to Pages 179–190 251

Conclusion 1. See Moses ben Maimon, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot melakhim u-milḥamotehem 12:3; English translation (with slight modification) in The Code of Maimonides: Book Fourteen, the Book of Judges, trans. Abraham M. Hershman (New Haven, Conn., 1949), 241–42. 2. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (New York, 1989), 31. 3. See Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) (Philadelphia, 1967), l–lv. 4. See the text, published with Hebrew translation, in Nethanel Ibn Fayyūmī, Bustān al-ʿuqūl, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem, 1954), 145–66; for discussion of its provenance, see 143–44. See also the edition in Shimon Geridi, “‘Kitāb al-marāqī’ o ‘Kitāb alʿashr al-maqālāt,’” in Ḥasifat genuzim mi-Teman, ed. Yehuda Levi Naḥum (Ḥolon, 1971), 288–321. On the spiritual outlook that informs the work, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Ha-Rambam, ha-mashiaḥ be-Teman, veha-shemad (Jerusalem, 2002), 117–20. 5. Bustān al-ʿuqūl, ed. Kafiḥ, 145. 6. This is a slightly modified version of Qurʾā n 10:94. 7. Bustān al-ʿuqūl, ed. Kafiḥ, 146.

Appendix A 1. Substituting ḍād for ẓāʾ. On the frequent merger of these consonants in medieval Judeo-Arabic see Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic: A Study of the Origins of Neo-Arabic and Middle Arabic, 3d ed. (Jerusalem, 1999), 76. 2. For this meaning of ḥarf, see Joshua Blau, Milon le-ṭeqsṭim ʿarviyim-yehudiyim mimei ha-benayim (Jerusalem, 2006), 116.

Appendix B 1. EJ 2, s.v. “Nasi,” 14:785 (Isaac Levitats).

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Index of Manuscript Sources

The following list is arranged alphabetically according to location and collection.

Berlin: Library of the Jewish Community of Berlin Berlin MS Or. Oct. 256, fol. 180 Appendix B, #13, #101 Berlin MS Or. Heb. Oct. 517, fol. 64b II, n. 32; Appendix B, #87

Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences David Kaufmann Collection DK 120 DK 230.3

I, n. 75 IV, n. 5

Cambridge: Cambridge University Library Jacques Mosseri Collection (formerly in Paris, on long-term loan to Cambridge University Library as of 2006) Mosseri I 107.2 Mosseri Ia 2 Mosseri Ia 19 Mosseri IV 5r Mosseri V 341.1 Mosseri VII 43 Mosseri VIII 90.1

II, n. 25 Appendix B, #31 Appendix B, #11 II, n. 104 IV, n. 1 Appendix B, #71 Appendix B, #31

Oriental Collection CUL Or. 1080 J 78

Appendix B, #3, #103



278 Index of Manuscript Sources CUL Or. 1080 J 89 CUL Or. 1080 J 225

III, n. 42 IV, n. 23

Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection Old Ser ies (T-S A-K) T-S K3.25-26 T-S K6.152 T-S K25.244 (T-S number A-K) T-S 6J1.24 T-S 6J1.28 T-S 6J4.15 T-S 6J4.27 T-S 6J9.2 T-S 8J2 T-S 8J10.15 T-S 8J22.25 T-S 8J23.27 T-S 8J38.6 T-S 8Ja2.1 T-S 8K22.2 T-S 8K22.10 T-S 10J13.14 T-S 10J15.10 T-S 10J15.19 T-S 10J16.3 T-S 10J16.8 T-S 10J22.3 T-S 10J22.8 T-S 10J24.1 T-S 10J25.2 T-S 10J27.6 T-S 10K7.1 T-S 10K20.9 T-S 13J2.3 T-S 13J4.7 T-S 13J9.1 T-S 13J10.11

Preface, n. 1 Appendix B, #69 I, n. 77; III, n. 28; IV, 104 IV, n. 48 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, # 27 I, n. 103 Appendix B, #97 IV, n. 9 IV, n. 24 I, n. 62, 96 Introduction, n. 43 I, nn. 40, 59; II, nn. 57, 60 II, nn. 36, 59 Appendix B, #53 IV, n. 1 I, n. 36 Appendix B, #48 Appendix B, #1 Appendix B, #7 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #44 I, n. 2; Appendix B, #103 Appendix B, #31 III, n. 43 I, n. 112 I, n. 39 Appendix B, #97 I, n. 76; Appendix B, #27, #43 Appendix B, #70, #88

T-S 13J11.3 T-S 13J13.13 T-S 13J14.10 T-S 13J15.14 T-S 13J16.7 T-S 13J21.8 T-S 13J21.24 T-S 13J22.2 T-S 13J22.10 T-S 13J25.21 T-S 13J26.18 T-S 13J27.5 T-S 13J31.1 T-S 13J31.5 T-S 13J35.1 T-S 13J36.6 T-S 18J2.3 T-S 18J2.5 T-S 18J4.6r T-S 18J4.13 T-S 18J5.10 (T-S Ar.) T-S Ar. 6.14 T-S Ar. 6.28 T-S Ar. 46.77 T-S Ar. 46.125 T-S Ar. 48.270 T-S Ar. 52.248 (T-S Misc.) T-S Misc. 25.146 T-S Misc. 35.20 T-S Misc. 35.28 T-S Misc. 35.35 T-S Misc. 35.40 T-S Misc. 36.147 T-S Misc. 36.184 (T-S number) T-S 8.5 T-S 8.161 T-S 12.138 T-S 12.217 T-S 12.352 T-S 12.440

Index of Manuscript Sources 279 Appendix B, #15, #30 I, n. 26; IV, n. 105 III, n. 23 Appendix B, #57, #105 I, n. 36 Appendix B, #48, #97 I, n. 93; Appendix B, #97 Introduction, n. 43 Introduction, n. 43 I, n. 28; Appendix B, #13, #101 I, n. 2 I, n. 26; IV, n. 105 IV, n. 1 IV, n. 103 V, n. 56 Appendix B, #47 I, n. 37 Appendix B, #27 III, n. 27; IV, n. 3 I, n. 93; Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, # 31 IV, n. 81 I, n. 42 IV, n. 85 IV, n. 85 Appendix B, #1 Appendix B, #22 I, n. 26 I, n. 80; V, n. 52 IV, n. 26 II, n. 64; III, n. 33 Appendix B, #43 I, n. 112 I, n. 111 I, n. 40 III, n. 14 II, n. 19 Appendix B, #47 Appendix B, #48, #97 I, n. 39



280 Index of Manuscript Sources T-S 12.504 T-S 12.654 T-S 12.728 T-S 16.36 T-S 16.50 TS 16.67 T-S 16.272 T-S 16.377 T-S 20.6 T-S 20.15 T-S 20.19 T-S 20.31 T-S 20.37 T-S 20.42 T-S 20.94r T-S 20.128 T-S 20.175 T-S 20.179 T-S 28.5 T-S 32.8

I, n. 85 I, n. 72; Appendix B, #64, #97 Appendix B, #70, #88 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #31; #47 Appendix B, #8 II, n. 88; IV, n. 61 Appendix B, #62 Introduction, n. 43 I, n. 79; V, n. 53; Appendix B, #53 IV, n. 25 IV, n. 94 Appendix B, #1 Appendix B, #47 II, nn. 51, 94; V, n. 56 I, nn. 58, 89; Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #28, #50, #95 II, n. 44 Introduction, n. 43

New Ser ies (T-S NS) T-S NS 225.24 T-S NS 277.212 T-S NS 298.6 T-S NS 308.94 T-S NS 320.45 T-S NS 324.24v T-S NS 338.94 (T-S NS J1-629) T-S NS J2 T-S NS J29

Appendix B, #22 Appendix B, #90 I, nn. 60, 85 I, n. 102 I, n. 38 Appendix B, #71 I, n. 2; Appendix B, #103 I, n. 72 I, n. 47; Appendix B, #53

Additional Ser ies (T-S AS) T-S AS 145.42 T-S AS 145.94r T-S AS 146.5 T-S AS 150.148

Appendix B, #97 Appendix B, #71 Appendix B, #22 II, n. 20



Index of Manuscript Sources 281

Cambridge: Westminster College West. Coll. Misc. 102 West. Coll. Misc. 103

I, n. 91; V, n. 51; Appendix B, #97 I, n. 26

Heidelberg: Papyrussammlung der Universität Heidelberg P. Heid. Hebr. 10r

Appendix B, #43

Leiden: Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit MS Leiden Or. 4752, fol. 242a MS Leiden Or. 4790, fol. 111b

II, n. 21 II, n. 21; Appendix B, #95

London: British Library (formerly British Museum) BL Or. 2598, fol. 162 BL Or. 5532 BL Or. 5535 I BL Or. 5546 BL Or. 5549, fol. 1 BL Or. 5552 BL Or. 5557 A, fol. 7v BL Or. 5557 K, fol. 8 BL Or. 5566 D, fol. 24a

Appendix B, #23 Appendix B, #58 II, n. 44 Appendix B, #27 II, n. 57 I, n. 85 II, n. 58 Appendix B, #60 Appendix B, #1

New York: Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Elkan Nathan Adler Collection ENA 2592.6-7 ENA 2697.26 ENA 2806.9 ENA 2952 ENA 3765.5 ENA 3765.8-9 ENA 3765.10v ENA 4011.25 ENA 4011.74

Appendix B, #27 I, n. 21 II, n. 43 II, n. 36 III, n. 25 IV, n. 107 III, n. 27; IV, n. 3 Appendix B, #54, #91 I, n. 103



282 Index of Manuscript Sources ENA 4012 ENA 4020.6 ENA 4020.15 ENA NS 9.15 ENA NS 13.1 ENA NS 28.15

I, n. 85 IV, n. 1 Appendix B, #49 Appendix B, #43 Appendix B, #27 Appendix B, #2

Schechter Genizah Collection JTS Schechter Genizah 4

I, n. 37; Appendix B, #43

Oxford: University of Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 24 Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 42 Bodl. MS Heb. a 3, fol. 44 Bodl. MS Heb. c 50, fol. 11 Bodl. MS Heb. b 11, fol. 1 Bodl. MS Heb. b 11, fol. 34 Bodl. MS Heb. d 57, fol. 95 Bodl. MS Heb. d 65, fol. 25 Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fol. 33r Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fols. 49v-50r Bodl. MS Heb. d 66, fol. 69 Bodl. MS Heb. d 75, fol. 11 Bodl. MS Heb. d 75, fol. 18 Bodl. MS Heb. e 101, fol. 18 Bodl. MS Heb. f 34, fol. 44 Bodl. MS Heb. f 56, fols. 13v–19r Bodl. MS Heb. g 12, fol. 54

Appendix B, #97 I, n. 82; Appendix B, #50 Appendix B, #90 II, n. 44 Appendix B, #71 II, n. 65; III, n. 34; IV, n. 106 IV, n. 89 Introduction, n. 43 II, n. 43 I, n. 81; Appendix B, #10, #90 IV, n. 1 Appendix B, #85 I, n. 26 I, n. 2; Appendix B, #103 Appendix B, #99 IV, n. 71 I, n. 98

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Library of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (formerly Dropsie College) Halper 156 (2r) Halper 185 Halper 462 Halper 478

II, n. 105 Appendix B, #88 I, nn. 1, 92, 94; Appendix A; Appendix B, #4, #106 I, n. 108



Index of Manuscript Sources 283

St. Petersburg: National Library of Russia Antonin Collection Antonin 1131

I, n. 103

Firkovich Collections 2 Firk. Heb. A 142–43 2 Firk. Heb. A 1321 2 Firk. Heb. B 25 2 Firk. Heb. B 26 2 Firk. Heb. B 225 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 2057 2 Firk. Heb.-Arab. 3911

I, n. 97 Appendix B, # 100 Appendix B, #10 Appendix B, #10 Appendix B, #94 I, n. 29; Appendix B, #9, #16, #32, #80 Appendix B, #9

Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art Gottheil-Worrell 43

Appendix B, #47

Index

Abbasids: anti-Fatimid manifestos, 107–8; caliphs’ kinship with Muḥammad, 2, 5, 7, 42, 213n26; forged pedigrees/cultivation of spurious lineages, 173; office of the naqīb al-ashrāf (marshal of the nobility), 69–70; and political/economic changes in Baghdad caliphate, 53–54; shuʿūbiyya movement and tensions with non-Arabs, 164–66, 178; use of names to legitimize authority, 99. See also travel accounts of twelfth-century Jews ʿAbd al-Nabī, 149 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, 151 Abraham bar Hillel, “Scroll of Zuṭa the Wicked,” 98–99, 147 Abraham bar Ḥiyya, 146 Abraham ben Ḥalfon, 46 Abraham ha-Kohen Ibn Furāt, 157–58, 226n77 Abraham Ibn Ezra, 52 Abraham Maimonides, 31; on Judaism’s precedence over Islam, xiii, 209–10n7; and messianism, 154; responsum to Joseph ben Gershom’s conflict with nasi Hodaya ben Jesse, 42, 47–51, 52, 225n53 Abramson, Shraga, 102, 236n106 Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾa lī, 63–64 Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥalabī, 62 Abū al-Qāsim Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, 132 Abū Nuwās, 170 Abū Saʿīd ibn Dāʾūdī, 161–62 Abū Zikrī ben Elijah, 48 ʿAḍūd al-Dawla, 2 ʿAlid dynasty: and House of David as counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, 60, 63–64; mahdist tradition, 153; names chosen to legitimize authority, 99 ʿAlī ibn Mahdī, 148–49 ʿAlī Iqbāl al-Dawla, 167 ʿAllūn ibn Yaʿīsh al-Hārūnī, 46 Almohad invasions, 23

Amadiyya region, messianic anticipation in, 147–48 ʿamida prayer, 143–45 Amram ben Joseph, 133 ʿAnan ben Daniel, 74–75, 85 ʿAnan ben David, 17, 29–30, 75 al-Andalus: and Arabic-style Hebrew poetry, 27–28; and Benjamin of Tudela, 1; Jacob Ibn Jau’s nasi status, 45; messianic motifs of poets, 140; popularity of the nisba alanṣārī (anṣārī lineage), 174; shuʿūbiyya movement, 167, 174 Arabic culture in the Islamic East: Arabicstyle Hebrew poetry, 27–28; and claims of Jewish precedence over Islam, xiii, 209–10n7; expressions of pride and superiority over non-Arabs, 165–66; the family of Muḥammad (the ahl al-bayt), 7–10, 21, 60–64, 94–95, 166, 178; genealogy and nobility of lineage/pedigree, 165–66; genre of mathālib works, 126; honorifics, 60–61, 63, 70; influence of the mawālī, 164–65; Jewish-Muslim commercial and cultural interaction, 23–26; the mahdī tradition, 153–57; Muslims’ perceptions of the House of David, 52–53, 85, 177–78; naming practices, 99; nasab-style genealogy, xiv–xv, 6–10, 28, 174–77, 180–83; philosophy, 24; the qurʾā nic tahlīl (lā ilāha illā Allāh), xi–xiv; shuʿūbiyya movement and Arab chauvinism, 163–64, 166– 74; Sunnī-Shīʿī politics and role of genealogy in political discourse, 63–64, 107–8. See also Arabic language Arabic language: expressions of linguistic preeminence, 165; Jewish embrace of, xii–xiii, 24, 25; linguistic substitutions for Hebrew words, 46–47, 52; shuʿūbiyya movement and non-Arabs’ rebuttals of Arab linguistic superiority, 167; the tahlīl (lā ilāha illā Allāh), xi–xiv



286 Index ashrāf, 61, 63 Ashtor, Eliyahu, 22 ʿavoda (genre of liturgical poetry), 117–18 Ayyubids, 23, 51 Babylonian Talmud, 103, 179, 181 Bacharach, Jere L., 99 Baer, Yitzhak, 45 Baghdad yeshiva: on the gaʾon Samuel ben ʿEli, 3, 54–55, 63, 84, 126–29; Samuel’s argument that the exilarchate should be subordinate to, 127–29 Banū ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, 174 Banū Fāris, 170–71 Baron, Salo W., 215n44, 215n47 al-Barqūlī, Samuel Ibn, 93 Bashar ibn Burd, 170–71 Baumgarten, Albert, 38 Benjamin of Tudela: and alternative pathways to Davidic membership, 84; background, 1; casting House of David as counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, 60; and city of Baghdad, 1–6; depiction of the Abbasid caliph, 2, 5, 42, 212n21; on expansion of nasi status/title, 44; and individualized ancestor lists, 82, 175; on Jewish empowerment in Baghdad, 3–6; on messianic claimant David al-Roʾi, 148; on the office of the exilarch, 3–6, 5–7, 177; on Samuel ben ʿEli, 128; Sefer hamassaʿot (Book of Travels), 1–2 Ben Meir, 83, 108, 109–10 Ben-Sasson, Menahem, 111–12 Berbers and the shuʿūbiyya movement, 167, 173–74, 177–78 al-Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad: the al-Athār al-bāqiya, 74–75, 85, 172; genealogy of ʿAnan ben Daniel, 74–75, 85; on the genealogy of Muḥammad, 95; on imposters and forged genealogies, 95 Bosworth, C. E., 172 Brann, Ross, 27 Bustān al-ʿuqūl (The Garden of Intellects) (Nethanel Ibn Fayyūmī), xii, xiii, 141 Bustanay (exilarch), 57–59, 60, 123 Bustanay story, Judeo-Arabic version of, 52, 57–59, 61–62, 104–5, 121–23; composition and dissemination, 122; Jewish messianism and the mahdī tradition, 153, 154–55, 160–61; the mosquito image, 104–5

calendar controversy of Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī and gaʾon Ben Meir, 83, 108, 109–10 Cohen, Boaz, 241n19 Cohen, Gerson, 181–82 Cohen, Mark R., 19–20, 131–32 crusades and Jewish messianism, 152–53 cultural interaction, Jewish-Muslim, 24–26 Daniel ben ʿAzarya (gaʾon of the Palestinian yeshiva), 19–20, 35, 43; campaign for the gaonate, 90, 115–18; ʿEli ha-Kohen’s panegyric poem, 42, 89–90, 116–18, 123; and Jewish messianic anticipation, 132–33, 134, 138–39, 158–59; letters addressed to, 44, 56, 226n77; lineage in tribe of Judah, 118; political struggles with descendants of Solomon ha-Kohen ben Josiah, 90, 115–16, 123; and the “Scroll of Evyatar,” 124–26 Daniel ben Ḥisday, 5, 42, 56, 63, 126–27 dāʾūdī (“descendant of David”), 46–47 David al-Roʾi, 148 David ben Abraham, 134 David ben Daniel (son of Daniel ben ʿAzarya): campaign for authority of Egyptian Jewry (proclaimed exilarch), 19–20, 90–91, 118–19; and naming practices, 56, 97; political struggles with descendants of Solomon ha-Kohen ben Josiah, 90, 115– 16, 123; and “Scroll of Evyatar,” 65, 119, 124–26, 160 David ben Hodaya, 41, 83, 94, 95–96, 224n44, 227n84 David ben Zakkay, 214n42; and ancestor lists of exilarchs, 16, 73–74, 80–81, 97; conflict with Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī over exilarchic authority, 108, 110–11 dhimmī system, 22–27 Duby, Georges, 10 Elad, Amikam, 173 Eldad ha-Dani, story of, 83–84, 175 Eleazar ben ʿAzarya, 49–50 Eleazar ben Ṣemaḥ, 84 Eleazar ben Solomon, 84 ʿEli ben Amram: and messianism, 157–58, 159–60; panegyric for an eleventh-century dynast, 91–92, 119, 159–60 ʿEli ben Ḥayyim, 46 ʿEli ha-Kohen, panegyric poem dedicated to Daniel ben ʿAzarya, 42, 89–90, 116–18, 123

Index 287 Elijah ben Zechariah, 48 Elijah ha-Kohen ben Solomon, 125 Elisha ben Abraham ben Benvenisti, 73–74 Ephraim ben ʿAzarya, 147 Ephraim ben Shemarya, 104, 147 “Epistle of Sherira Gaʾon,” 44, 180–81 Europe, Latin (Western Christendom), nesiʾim in, 30–31, 44–46 Evyatar ha-Kohen ben Elijah, 119, 123. See also “Scroll of Evyatar” exilarch, office of: and the caliphate, 5, 6–7, 42, 212n21; debate of Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Naghrīla on ancestry of, 6; decentralization and emergence of local offices beyond Baghdad, 15–18, 19–21, 215n44; and the gaonate, 3–4, 15–18, 39; and injunction of Genesis 49:10 regarding perpetuation of Davidic rule, 5, 39, 42, 212n21; prestige in eyes of medieval Jews, 4–5; rabbinic lore concerning, 41–43; rivalry between descendants of David ben Zakkay and Josiah ben Zakkay, 16, 214n42; travelers’ accounts of, 3–6; and uncoupling of nasi title from authority, 43–51 Fatimids: Abbasid caliphs’ anti-Fatimid manifestos, 107–8; and clash between Nathan ben Abraham and Solomon ben Judah over control of Palestinian yeshiva, 131–32; dhimmī regulations under, 23; membership in the ahl al-bayt, 62 Fierro, Maribel, 174 Firkovich, Abraham, and manuscript collections from Karaite synagogue in Cairo, 11–14 Frenkel, Miriam, 18–19 Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, 135–36, 141 Funkenstein, Amos, 239n45 Fustat community: authority of the nesiʾim, 19–20; Cairo Geniza documents and repository at the Ben Ezra synagogue, 11; messianic anticipation, 143–44, 157–59 Galen, 25 genealogical concerns of Near Eastern Jews: ancestry/genealogical consciousness as collective concern, 7, 21–22, 64–66, 174– 77; embrace of nasab-style genealogy, xiv–xv, 6–10, 28, 174–77, 180–83; “genealogical turn,” 9–10. See also House of David in the Islamic East; Jewish

community in the medieval Arab-Islamic world; nesiʾim (descendants of the House of David) Genesis 49:10: and ʿEli ha-Kohen’s panegyric poem in honor of Daniel ben ʿAzariah, 118; and House of David’s unique right to authority, 120; injunction regarding perpetuation of Davidic rule in the reign of the exilarchs, 5, 39, 42, 212n21; lion of Judah and Davidic monarchy, 103 Geniza manuscripts, 10–14; and “classical Geniza period,” 11; and contemporary “non-Geniza” materials, 14; and Firkovich collections, 11–14; repository at the Ben Ezra synagogue in Fustat, 11 ghayba, doctrine of, 153, 154 Gil, Moshe, 19, 20, 122, 151, 226n77 Goitein, S. D., xiv–xv, 67; on Geniza society, 19; and the “Jewish-Arab symbiosis,” xv, 26; Mediterranean Society, 18, 135; and messianic anticipation, 135, 138, 151, 158; and naming practices, 96–97, 98; and the nesiʾim, 17–19, 216nn50–51; on title kohen and priestly lineage, 111 Goldziher, Ignaz, 169 Goodblatt, David, 221n4 Grace After Meals, 111, 144 Hagar, 170 al-Ḥākim (Fatimid caliph), 23 Halevi, Judah: eschatological/messianic imagery, 133–34, 140, 145, 153–54; and Judaism’s precedence over Islam, 209n7; Kuzari, 26, 153–54 Ḥalfon ben Nethanel, 138 Halm, Heinz, 99 Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, 156 Ḥananya ben Nathan, 80 Ḥanina ben Dosa, 109 al-Ḥarīzī, Judah: and Arabic language/verse, 25, 209–10n7; encomium to Josiah ben Jesse, 92–93; Taḥkemoni, 13, 92–93, 146, 152; and understandings of nasi title among Jews of Islamic East and Latin Europe, 45–46 hārūnī (“descendant of Aaron”), 46–47 al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, 68 Hayya Gaʾon (son of Sherira Gaʾon), 101–2, 144, 236n106 Heman ben Ḥanamel the nasi, 100–101, 235n99



288 Index Hezekiah ben David ben Zakkay, 16, 56, 97, 215n44 Hillel the Elder, 38–39, 71, 83 Ḥisday ben David, 62, 73–74 Ḥisday ben Hezekiah ben Solomon, 57 Hodaya ben Jesse, 42–43; draft of flattering letter sent to, 56, 176; Joseph ben Gershom’s conflict with, 47–51, 225n53 House of David in the Islamic East, xiv–xv, 34–67; alternative genealogical pathways to membership, 82–85; as counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, 7–10, 21, 60–64, 166, 178; and the exilarchate, 3–6, 15–20, 39, 42, 215n44; as family/descent group/kinship group, 51–53; geographic distribution/dispersion outside Iraq, 53–55; how veneration of Davidic line has shifted over time, 8; Muslims’ perception of, 52–53, 85, 177–78; and nonDavidic pedigrees, 83–85; as “prophetic family,” 62; purity and nobility of, 61–62; the rabbinic sources/rabbinic legacy, 37–43, 65–66, 70–71, 221n4; rise in number of individuals claiming Davidic descent, 59– 60. See also Jewish community in the medieval Arab-Islamic world; nesiʾim (descendants of the House of David); public performance of Davidic lineage Huna bar Nathan, 235n99 al-Ḥuṣrī, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī, 165 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, 167–68 Ibn Abī Shujāʿ, 151 Ibn al-ʿAdīm, chronicle of, 68–70 Ibn al-Bannāʾ, al-Ḥasan, 53 Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, 85, 95 Ibn al-Rūmī, 169 Ibn al-Shaʿār al-Mawṣilī, 25 Ibn Bashkuwal, 174 Ibn Daud, Abraham, 45, 101–2 Ibn Fāris, 165, 166 Ibn Fayyūmī, Nethanel, Bustān al-ʿuqūl (The Garden of Intellects), xii, xiii, 141 Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, 26 Ibn Gharsiya, Risāla, 167, 168, 170 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, 176–77 Ibn Ḥayyān, Abū Marwān, 173–74 Ibn Ḥazm, ʿAlī, 6 Ibn Hishām, ʿAbd al-Malik, 94 Ibn Jābir, Joseph, 25–26 Ibn Jau, Jacob, 45 Ibn al-Mahdī, ʿAbd al-Nabī, 23

Ibn Migash, Abraham ha-Levi, 85; Kevod Elohim (The Glory of God), 85 Ibn Naghrīla, Joseph, 23 Ibn Naghrīla, Samuel, 6 Ibn Qutayba: Kitāb al-ʿarab (The Book of the Arabs), 163–64; and the shuʿūbiyya movement, 163–64, 170, 172 Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk, 62 Ibn Sarjāda, Khalaf, 108, 110–11 Ibn Shaddād, 147 al-Idrīsī, Idrīs ibn al-Ḥasan, 68–70, 87 Ifḥām al-yahūd (The Silencing of the Jews), 147–48 Isaac Israeli, 25 Ishmael: Arab people’s descent from, 27, 170; and Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s poem on the Jewish people’s beleaguered status, 219n86 isnād (chain of transmission in hadīth sources), 181 Israel ben Nathan, 46 Jacob ben Amram, 132 Jacob ben Meir, 1 Jacob ben Nethanel al-Fayyūmī, 148–49 al-Jāḥiẓ, Abu ʿUthmān ʿUmar ibn Bishr, 52–53, 167 al-Jawwānī, Muḥammad ibn al-Asʿad, 68– 70, 87 Jedidiah ben Jesse, 79, 95–96, 97 Jesse ben Hezekiah, 42, 102–3 Jewish community in the medieval ArabIslamic world, 22–30; ancestry/genealogical consciousness as collective concern, 7, 21–22, 64–66, 174–77; and Arabic language, xii–xiii, 24, 25, 46–47, 52, 167; Arabic-style Hebrew poetry, 27–28; Baghdad, 3–6; and continuities with biblical past (“chain of tradition” literature), 180–82; as dhimmī people, 22–27; embrace of nasab-style genealogy and biblical ancestry, xiv–xv, 6–10, 28, 174–77, 180–83; “genealogical turn,” 9–10; “Islamicization,” 21; Jewish-Muslim commercial and cultural interaction, 23–26; minority-status in Islamic society, 21–28; number of individuals claiming Davidic lineage, 59–60; population estimates, 22; Rabbanites and Karaites, 28–30; and shuʿūbiyya movement, 163–64, 168–69; tensions between Jewish populations, 48–51; in travelers’ accounts, 1–6. See also

Index 289 House of David in the Islamic East; political authority and ancestry/lineage in medieval Jewish community Johnson, Marshall, 40 Joseph ben Gershom, 47–51, 225n53 Joseph ben Jacob, 66 Joseph ben Obadiah, 56, 175 Joseph ha-Kohen ben Menaḥem, 112, 113–14 Joseph ha-Kohen ben Solomon, 125 Joseph ha-Levi ben Ḥalfon, 155, 246n94 Joseph Qimḥi, 213n25; Sefer ha-berit (Book of the Covenant), 6–7 Joshua ha-Kohen ben Yaʾir, letter of, 85–86, 114–15, 238n23 Josiah ben Aaron, 238n23 Josiah ben Jesse, 92–93 Josiah ben Zakkay, 16, 81, 214n42 Judah ben Josiah, 175–76 Judah ha-Nasi: Davidic lineage of, 38, 39– 40, 66, 83, 221n5, 224n44; descendants named after, 98 Karaites: Cairo synagogue and Firkovich collection, 11–14; marriage contracts, 56–57; messianic anticipation, 140, 144, 145–46; nesiʾim, 29–30, 44, 52, 56–57; new exilarchal offices, 17; new perceptions of the Davidic line as family group, 52, 225n59; relations with Rabbanites, 28–30 Kitāb al-ansāb (Book of Genealogies), 173 Kitāb al-filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya (The Book of Nabatean Agriculture), 168 Kitāb al-marāqī ilā rutb yemot ha-mashiaḥ (The Book of Steps Leading to the Station of the Days of the Messiah), 182–83 Kitāb al-taʾrīkh (Book of Chronology): and beginning of the shahāda, xi–xiv; “chain of tradition” literature, 180–81; early chronicles with name sequences, 72–74, 75, 79– 81; and first individualized ancestor lists linking figures to King David, 75–76, 79–81; and the qurʾanic tahlīl (lā ilāha illā Allāh), xi–xiv Kohen Ṣedeq, 108, 110–11 Kraemer, Joel, 24, 139 Levi, Rabbi (third-century sage), 39 Lewis, Bernard, 21 lion of Judah, 100–105, 235n99, 236n106 mahdī (title), 99, 153

mahdist tradition, Shīʿī: and designation of the redeemer figure as al-qāʾim, 153; and Jewish messianism, 153–57; and Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen,” 148–49, 154, 155–56 Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon): and astrological science, 146; Commentary on the Mishnah, 25–26, 66, 141, 142; and the exilarch’s prestige, 5, 41–42; forged letter sent to Jewish community of Fez, 161–62; introduction to commentary on tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin, 66; Jesse ben Hezekiah’s ban directed against critics of Guide for the Perplexed, 102–3; and Jews’ minority status in Muslim world, 26–27; letter addressed to scholars of southern France, 155–56; “Letter to Yemen,” 26–27, 137, 142–43, 148–50, 154, 155–56, 241n19, 245n70; and messianism, 137, 141–43, 148–50, 154, 155–56, 161–62; Mishneh Torah, 142, 179–80, 181; Pirqei Moshe (Chapters of Moses) on close affinities of Hebrew and Arabic, 24 Mann, Jacob: and the authority exercised by the nesiʾim, 15–18, 19–21; and emergence of local exilarchal offices, 15–18; “The Exilarchal Office in Babylonia and Its Ramifications at the End of the Gaonic Age,” 15–17; on a poetic composition in honor of Sar Shalom ben Phineas, 87; study of messianic anticipation, 134–35; on visual clues to Davidic ancestry, 102, 236n106 al-Manṣūr, 213n26; and Ibn Jau’s nasi status in al-Andalus, 45; names chosen to legitimize his authority, 99 maqāma literature, 146, 152 al-Maqqarī, 25 Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen ben Solomon, 84 mathālib works, 126 mawālī, 164–65 medicine, field of, 25 Menaḥem (son of Solomon ibn Rūjī), 147–48 messianic anticipation, medieval Jewish, 131– 62; Amadiyya region, 147–48; and astrological science, 146, 152; and clash between Nathan ben Abraham and Solomon ben Judah, 131–33; and the crusades, 152–53; and Daniel ben ʿAzarya, 132–33, 134, 138– 39, 158–59; failed movements in Cordoba

290 Index and Fez, 150; Fustat community, 143–44, 157–59; Goitein on “popular messianism,” 138, 158; historians’ study of, 134–37; in Islamic context, 152–57; and Ismaʿīlī daʿwa, 156; and Jews of Yemen, 141, 148–50, 154, 155–56; Judah al-Harīzī’s Taḥkemoni, 146, 152; and Judeo-Arabic Bustanay story, 153, 154–55, 160–61; Karaites, 140, 144, 145–46; liturgical expressions, 143–45; and Maimonides, 137, 141–43, 148–50, 154, 155–56, 161–62; Maimonides’ “Letter to Yemen,” 137, 142–43, 148–50, 154, 155–56, 241n19; medieval panegyrics and eschatological imagery, 133–34, 159–60; messianic claimants and their supporters, 147–50; occultation of the messiah, 154; poetry of Judah Halevi, 133–34, 140, 153–54; possible twelfth-century Baghdad movement, 150– 52; predictions and calculations for advent of the messiah, 145–46; Rabbanites, 143, 144–45; and rabbinic sources, 39–40, 154; scholarly theological works, 139–43; and “Scroll of Evyatar,” 160–61; and Shīʿī mahdī tradition, 153–57 Mevorakh ben Nathan of Gaza, 104 Mevorakh ben Saʿadya, 119, 124, 133 Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), 142, 179–80, 181 Monroe, James, 167 Moses: and Jewish messianism, 154; Samuel ben ʿEli on the yeshiva and, 127–29 Moses al-Darʿī, 150 Moses ben Samuel, 82 Moses ibn Ezra, 154 Mottahedeh, Roy, 163, 166 Muḥammad, family of (the ahl al-bayt), 7–10, 21, 60–64, 94–95, 166, 178; alBīrūnī’s genealogy of, 95; Fatimid rulers’ membership in, 62; al-Idrīsī’s fraudulent claim to membership in, 68–69; and Islamic honorifics for Davidic line, 61, 63; nobility of, 166, 178; as “prophetic family,” 62 Muḥammad al-Mahdī, 153 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, 99 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir, 169 Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī, 167 al-Muntaẓam (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn alJawzī), 151 Mūsā al-Qāẓim, 153 al-Mustanjid, 63

Nafīs ibn Dāwūd ibn ʿAnan al-Dāwūdī, 176–77 Naḥmanides, Moses, 45 Nahray ben Nissim, 46 naming practices and public performance of Davidic lineage, 56, 58–59, 96–100 Nathan ben Abraham: clash with Solomon ben Judah, 122, 131–33; and Judeo-Arabic story of Bustanay, 104, 122 Nathan ha-Bavli, 4, 42, 62, 214n42 Nehoray (a physician in Tiberias), 41, 98 nesiʾim (descendants of the House of David): and Arabic title dāʾūdī, 46–47, 52; documenting and publicizing Davidic lineage of, 55–59; geographic distribution/dispersion outside Iraq, 53–55; Goitein’s disregard for, 18–19, 216nn50–51; Jewish populations and differences in meaning of, 49–51; in Latin Europe, 30–31, 44–46; medieval continuities with rabbinic designation, 41; and messianic anticipation, 136–37, 157–62; proliferation of, 8–9; Rabbanites and Karaites, 29–30; alRaḥbī’s genealogy of an unnamed individual nasi, 34–37, 52, 56, 57, 61, 70, 76, 94, 157, 175, 220n1; scholarship on the authority exercised by, 14–22, 215n47, 216nn50–51; sources on, 10–14; uncoupling from authority and shift in use of title, 43–51. See also House of David in the Islamic East Nethanel ha-Levi ben Moses, 63 nisba al-anṣārī, 174 non-Arab peoples: and Arab expressions of superiority/chauvinism, 165–66; different uses of genealogy, 177–78; and mawālī, 164–65; North African Berbers, 167, 173– 74, 177–78; promotion of a glorious nonArab past, 170–71; promotion of Persian ancestry/culture, 171–72, 177–78; rebuttals of Arabic linguistic superiority, 167; refuting Arab claims to genealogical preeminence, 168–74; shuʿūbiyya movement and resentment against Arab chauvinism, 163–64, 166–74; simmering tensions in Abbasid period, 164–66, 178; use of genealogy for cultural legitimacy, 163–78 Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro, 82 Obadiah the Proselyte’s “Scroll,” 136–37, 147 Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith, 29

Index 291 Pact of ʿUmar, 23, 100 Palestinian Talmud, 37, 70–71 Palestinian yeshiva: clash between Nathan ben Abraham and Solomon ben Judah, 122, 131–33; Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s campaign for the gaonate, 90, 115–18; descendants of Solomon ha-Kohen and campaign against Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel, 90, 115–16, 123; and genealogical record-keeping, 84; letter addressed to David ben Daniel (and issue of political marginalization), 90–91, 119; letter concerning two families’ control and “the exceedingly rebellious Kohanim of Ifrīqiya,” 111–14; and “Scroll of Evyatar,” 119, 125 Parḥon ha-Kohen ben Judah of Sijilmāsa, 126 Persian ancestry and culture: Ṣaffārids and revitalization of Persian literary culture, 171–72; shuʿūbiyya movement and promotion of, 171–72, 177–78 pesiqa (public pledge drive for the benefit of the needy), 176 Petaḥya of Regensburg: and alternative pathways to Davidic membership, 83, 84; and astrologers’ predictions of the advent of the messiah, 146; background, 1; on Baghdad’s Jews and Jewish communal life, 2–3; and city of Baghdad, 1–6; depiction of House of David as counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, 60; on the gaʾon Samuel ben ʿEli, 3; and individualized ancestor lists, 82, 175; on Jewish empowerment in Baghdad, 3–6; on medieval nesiʾim, 41, 175; on the office of the exilarch, 6–7, 177 philosophy, Muslim, 24 political authority and ancestry/lineage in medieval Jewish community, 107–30; the calendar controversy, 83, 108, 109–10; competition between priestly and Davidic lineages, 111–18, 121, 123–25; controversies of Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī, 108–11; Daniel ben ʿAzarya and David ben Daniel’s struggles with descendants of gaʾon Solomon ha-Kohen ben Josiah, 90, 115–16, 123; Daniel ben ʿAzarya’s campaign for the gaonate, 90, 115–18; David ben Daniel’s campaign for authority of Egyptian Jewry, 19–20, 90–91, 118–19; ʿEli ha-Kohen’s panegyric poem in honor

of Daniel ben ʿAzarya, 42, 89–90, 116–18, 123; fragmentary sermon on the House of David’s unique right to authority, 119–21; the Judeo-Arabic story of Bustanay, 121– 23; the letter of Joshua ha-Kohen ben Yaʾir, 85–86, 114–15; the letters of Samuel ben ʿEli, 54–55, 126–29; the Palestinian yeshiva and “the exceedingly rebellious Kohanim of Ifrīqiya,” 111–14; Samuel ben ʿEli’s argument for the abolitions of the exilarchate, 127–29; “Scroll of Evyatar” and deliberate distortion of Davidic claims to power, 20, 65, 119, 121, 123–26, 160–61 Poznanski, Samuel, 15, 16–17; “The Exilarchs in the Post-Gaonic Period,” 15 priestly lineage: and ʿavoda (liturgical poetry), 117–18; competition between Davidic lineage and, 111–14, 115–18, 121, 123–25; distinction between legitimate and illegitimate lineages (and “the exceedingly rebellious Kohanim of Ifrīqiya”), 111–14; and priestly gifts/offerings, 111, 238n20; and “Scroll of Evyatar,” 124–25; the title kohen, 46–47, 111–14 Psalm 90 and messianic anticipation, 144, 145 public performance of Davidic lineage, 56– 59, 68–106; and alternative genealogical pathways to Davidic membership, 82–85; construction of public identities, 85–88; and early chronicles with name sequences, 71–81; ʿEli ha-Kohen’s poem dedicated to Daniel ben ʿAzarya, 42, 89– 90, 116–18, 123; family memorial lists, 56, 88; flattering letters addressed to dynasts, 56; genealogies, 70–85; Geniza text tracing descendants through multiple lines of the Davidic family, 79–81; al-Idrīsī’s dispute with Shīʿī genealogist al-Jawwānī, 68–70, 87; imposters/pretenders and forgeries, 85–86, 95–96, 114–15, 136–37, 147; individualized, personal ancestor lists/ pedigrees, 57–59, 74–82; literary commemorations and panegyric poetry, 42, 86–96, 116–18, 123, 133–34, 159–60; liturgical expressions of messianic anticipation, 143–45; Muslims’ interest in genealogy of Davidic line, 85; naming practices, 56, 58–59, 96–100; non-Davidic pedigrees, 83–85; personal letters, 56;



292 Index prestige of a “pedigreed family” (mishpaḥa meyuḥasa), 94–95; significance of a continuous/exhaustive pedigree, 94–96; travelers’ accounts, 82, 84; visual cues (lion iconography and notables’ seals), 100–105, 235n94, 235n99, 236n106 qaddish prayer, 144 al-Qādir (Abbasid caliph), 107 al-Qāʾim (Abbasid caliph), 107 al-Qalqashandī, 51 al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, 64 Rabba bar Abbuha, 101–2 Rabbanites: liturgical expressions of messianic anticipation, 143, 144–45; relations with Karaites, 28–30 rabbinic sources: and Davidic lineage attached to authority/communal functions, 38–41, 43–44; disregard for Davidic pedigrees/genealogical evidence, 40–41, 70– 71; and the exilarchate, 39, 42; and House of David in the Islamic East, 37–43, 65– 66, 70–71, 221n4; and Jewish messianism, 39–40, 154; Jews’ interest in genealogies of rabbinic sages, 65–66; and lineage of Judah ha-Nasi, 38, 39–40, 41; lore concerning patriarchs and exilarchs, 41–43 al-Raḥbī, Abraham ha-Levi bar Tamim, genealogy of an unnamed nasi, 34–37, 52, 56, 57, 61, 70, 76, 94, 157, 175, 220n1 Reiner, Elchanan, 48, 120 Risāla of Ibn Gharsiya, 167, 168, 170 Ruth, Book of, 91, 95 Saʿadya ben Joseph al-Fayyūmī: and calendar controversy with gaʾon Ben Meir, 83, 108, 109–10; political controversies of, 108–11; tafsīr of, xii Saʿadya Gaʾon: dispute with exilarch David ben Zakkay, 214n42; and Jews’ interest in genealogies of rabbinic sages, 65–66; Kitāb al-mukhtār fī al-imānāt waʾliʿtiqādāt (Book of Beliefs and Opinions), 139–40; messianic speculation, 139–40, 145; non-Davidic pedigree, 83, 126; Toledot rabbenu ha-qadosh, 66 Saʿadya he-Ḥaver of Hebron, 123 sāda, 61 Ṣaffārids and Persian literary culture, 171–72 Sahlān ben Abraham, 122

Sahl ben Maṣliaḥ, 140 Sahl ibn Hārūn, 169–70; Kitāb asmāʾ baghayat al-quraysh fī al-jāhiliyya wa-man waladna (The Names of the Whores of Quraysh in the Pre-Islamic Period and Those They Bore), 169–70 Saʿīd ibn Ḥusayn, 99 Salmon ben Yeruḥim, 154 Samawʾa l al-Magrībī, 147–48 Samuel ben Aaron of Schlettstadt, 95–96, 97 Samuel ben David ben Solomon, 83 Samuel ben ʿEli (gaʾon of the Baghdad yeshiva), 3, 54–55, 63, 84, 126–29; argument for the abolition of the exilarchate, 127– 29; letters of, 54–55, 126–29 Samuel ben Ḥananya, 133 Samuel ben Samson, 235n94 Samuel ha-Kohen ben Joseph, 112, 113–14 Sar Shalom ben Phineas, 44, 77–79, 86–88 sayyid, 60–61, 70 Schechter, Solomon, 11 Scheindlin, Raymond, 27–28, 140 “Scroll of Evyatar,” 20, 65, 119, 121, 123–26, 160–61 “Scroll of Zuṭa the Wicked” (Abraham bar Hillel), 98–99, 147 Seder ʿolam zuṭa (The Lesser Order of the World), 57, 71–72, 74, 75–76, 79, 81, 178 Seder tanaʾim ve-amoraʾim (Order of Mishnaic and Talmudic Sages), 180–81 Sefer ha-qabbala (Book of Tradition), 45 Sefer Zerubavel, 139–40, 145 Ṣemaḥ ben Asa, 57 Ṣemaḥ ben Josiah, 75 Shāhnāmah, 172 sharīf, 60–61, 70 Sharot, Stephen, 152 Shatzmiller, Maya, 173, 174 Shem Tov ben Abraham ben Gaʾon, 77 Sherira Gaʾon, 101–2 Shīʿī Muslims, 63–64; and mahdist activism, 153–57; Sunnī- Shīʿī politics and role of genealogy, 63–64, 107–8 shuʿūbiyya movement, 163–64, 166–74; and Arab descent from slaves, 170; and Arabs’ meager attainments in science and technology, 167–68; and Berbers, 167, 173–74, 177–78; celebrating non-Arabs’ bravery on battlefield, 168; and forged Arab pedigrees/cultivation of spurious lineages, 173; Ibn Qutayba’s Kitāb al-ʿarab, 163–64;

Index 293 Muslim Spain (al-Andalus), 167, 174; and nasab, 163–64, 168–69; promotion of a glorious non-Arab past, 170–71; promotion of Persian ancestry and culture, 171– 72, 177–78; rebuttals of Arab linguistic superiority, 167; refuting Arab claims to genealogical preeminence, 168–74; Risāla of Ibn Gharsiya, 167, 168, 170 Simeon ben Gamaliel, 83 Solomon ben David, 77, 78, 97–98 Solomon ben Jesse, 52, 60–61, 175 Solomon ben Judah, 122, 131–33 Solomon ha-Kohen, 136–37, 147 Solomon ha-Kohen ben Joseph, 90, 115–16, 123 Solomon ibn Rūjī, 147 “Story of Eldad ha-Dani,” 83–84, 175 Sunnī- Shīʿī politics and role of genealogy, 63–64, 107–8 Tahirids, 173 tahlīl formulation (lā ilāha illā Allāh), xi–xiv Tārīkh-i Sīstān (The History of Sistan), 171 al-Thaʿālibī, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad, 166 Toorawa, Shakwat, 171 travel accounts of twelfth-century Jews, 1–6; on alternative pathways to Davidic membership, 83, 84; Benjamin of Tudela’s Sefer ha-massaʿot, 1–2; casting House of David

as Jewish counterpart to the ahl al-bayt, 60; and individualized, personal ancestor lists linking figures to David, 82; and medieval messianic anticipation, 146, 148; on the office of the exilarch, 3–6; perceptions of city of Baghdad, 1–6; on theme of Jewish empowerment, 3–6. See also Benjamin of Tudela; Petaḥya of Regensburg al-Tūsī, Abū Manṣūr, 172 Twersky, Isadore, 142 ʿUbayd Allāh, 25 ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, 104–5, 122, 166, 178 Wasserstrom, Steven, 64 Wieder, Naphtali, 119–20, 121 Yahalom, Yosef, 145 Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth, 171 Yefet ben David ben Shekhanya, 44, 158–59 Yefet ben ʿEli, 95, 145, 156 Yefet ben Sason, 52 Yerushalmi, Yosef, 181 Yeshuʿa ben Nathan, 104 Yosi ben Bun, 39, 42 Zakkay ben ʿAzarya, 35–36, 215n44 Zirids, 173–74 Zunz, Leopold, 71

Acknowledgments

Whatever self-aggrandizing uses they may ultimately be put to, genealogies are, on a certain level, reminders that no individual exists in isolation and that behind each one of us and our achievements stands a long line of other people. It is therefore a most fitting privilege at the conclusion of a book in which genealogies play so central a role to able to acknowledge the many colleagues, friends, and family members who stood behind me and supported me over the course of this endeavor. To Mark Cohen, who planted the seed for this book and then generously and patiently nurtured its growth, I owe a very great debt indeed. With dispatch and the greatest of care he read draft after draft, making helpful suggestions at every turn. Particular thanks also go to Menahem Ben-Sasson, David Biale, Andras Hamori, Jeffrey Rubinstein, Marina Rustow, Seth Schwartz, and Avrom Udovitch for providing valuable comments on all or part of the manuscript during the long period of its gestation. For expeditiously responding to numerous queries on matters both great and small I am indebted to Ofra Tirosh-Becker, Haggai Ben-Shammai, Benjamin Hary, Philip Lieberman, Jonathan Milgram, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Ortal-Paz Saar, Avihai Shivtiel, David Sklare, Raymond Scheindlin, and Michael Terry. Elisheva Carlebach, Robert Chazan, Benjamin Gampel, Rachel Mesch, Jonathan Ray, Nancy Sinkoff, and Steven Weitzman offered sage counsel and good practical advice that ultimately helped turn the idea of this book into a reality. Infinite gratitude goes to Adam Davis for pointing me in the direction of the University of Pennsylvania Press, deciphering an obscure phrase in a Carolingian charter, and lending a sympathetic ear at a number of critical junctures. Thanks as well to kindred Davidic monarchists Geoffrey Herman and Elka Klein, zikhronah liverakha, for their encouragement and fraternity, and to Avraham David and Jonathan Decter for bringing new material to my attention. Maud Kozodoy helped me make sense of a Latin catalogue and gamely went on a lion hunt. For moral support and commiseration at many points along the way I am grateful to Fred Astren, Carol Bakhos, Alisa Braun, Hanan Cohen, Zohara



296 Acknowledgments

Cohen, Alanna Cooper, Sharon Flatto, Daniel Frank, Shari Lowin, Eddie Portnoy, Ilana Sasson, and Adena Tanenbaum. No single person has played a more important role in the realization of this book than Jeanne Theoharis, who kept me going throughout the long and winding journey. Words cannot express my gratitude for her friendship or my admiration for her integrity and determination. Over the years I benefited from the generous support of a number of host institutions. Particular thanks go to Lawrence Schiffman and the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, where I had the privilege of being a Dorot Post-Doctoral Fellow, and to David Biale and the Jewish Studies Program at the University of California at Davis, where I discovered new terrain and gained new perspective. Thanks as well to my former colleagues at Hunter College, Yitzhak Berger, Rivka Friedman, Tamara Green, Marlene Hennessy, Alexander Ellinson, Robert Seltzer, and Christopher Stone, and to my current colleagues at Queens College, Joel Allen, Elissa Bemporad, Francesca Bregoli, Samuel Heilman, Mark Rosenblum, Frank Warren, and Evan Zimroth, for giving me such a warm welcome and reminding me what a privilege it is to be in the academy. Travel and research expenses were underwritten by grants from the PSC-CUNY Research Award Program. My thanks go likewise to the archives and libraries where I worked and whose staff assisted me in my research. I am especially grateful to Ben Outhwaite and the staff of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library; Binyamin Richler and the staff of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library; Arnoud Vrolijk of Leiden University Library; David Kraemer and the Special Collections staff at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; and Arthur Kiron of the University of Pennsylvania Library. Thanks as well to Evelyn Cohen for facilitating a key contact. I would also like to express my thanks to the staff of the University of Pennsylvania Press—to Jerome Singerman, the acquiring editor, Caroline Winschel, the editorial assistant, and Erica Ginsburg, the associate managing editor—for gently shepherding this book through to publication. It is impossible to express adequately my feelings of gratitude to my family. My wife, Galit Mizrahi, not only provided unconditional support and encouragement at every stage of this bewildering process but patiently endured blank stares as my mind has wandered off in mid-conversation to remote times and faraway places. Despite the strong pull of the past, she has kept my feet grounded in the present and my gaze directed toward the future. My daughter Leah, my

Acknowledgments 297

zoo buddy, who arrived in the midst of this project, lifts my spirits daily and, with her inquisitiveness and exuberance, is a constant reminder of what is truly important in life. To my in-laws, Yehuda and Frida Mizrahi: thank you for your quiet, unflagging support and for so warmly welcoming me into your lives. ­Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Rhoda Franklin and Robert L. Franklin, who first instilled in me a love of books and a fascination with “the olden days.” I hope that I am able to give my daughter the same unwavering ­affection that they have always shown me. This book is lovingly dedicated to them.