Literary Contacts and Where to Find Them:
On Arabic Literary Models in
Medieval Jewish Literature

Abstract Literary contacts are generally assumed to consist of bilateral rela-
tions between two adjacent literatures, whereby one is considered to have "in-
fluence" over the other. The complexity of the problems encountered in the
study of cultural and literary interference is demonstrated here by way of two
medieval Jewish literary products which evolved as a direct result of the asso-
ciation between Jewish literature and Arabic culture. Moses ibn Ezra's Kitab
al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara, written in Judeo-Arabic, and Judah al-Harizi's
Hebrew Maqamat were both produced during the final phase of Jewish cul-
tural contact with Arabic, in twelfth- and thirteenth-century northern Spain
and Provence. Both are famous examples of Jewish works inspired by Arabic
models, yet a reexamination of the cultural circumstances of their production
reveals that it was not the Arabic-Jewish context that was responsible for their
evolution, but rather a third, local yet non-Arabic one, grounded specifically
in the relations between the individual authors and the Jewish cultural climate
of that time in Christian Spain, in one case, and in the East (Syria, Palestine,
and Babylon), in the other.

Cultural contacts, particularly literary contacts, are generally assumed
in traditional theories to consist of bilateral relations between two adja-
cent literatures, whereby one is considered to have "influence" over
the other. But very often we find cultural dynamics to be much more
complex and elaborate, as literary contacts and relationships are often

278 Drory: Literary Contacts

established among more than two literatures concurrently, and in ways
more subtle and intricate than can be defined as the mere "influence"
of one literature over the other. Even what may appear to be a clear-
cut case of the inspiration of one body of literature by another can
turn out, upon close examination, to be a case of multiliterary contacts.
It is not always easy to trace and account for such contacts, as they
are not necessarily manifested in what are conventionally regarded by
students of literature as the "concrete data" of the field, namely, writ-
ten texts. At times a whole cultural context has to be reconstructed in
order to understand the actual circumstances that made possible the
writing or production of a particular text, that is, the processes which
dominated and manipulated a literary field at a given point in time,
of which the written texts are only the final products. This can be par-
ticularly difficult for historians studying the past, who have virtually
nothing but written texts to go by. Yet considering these final prod-
ucts, the written texts, as "distinct facts" without taking into account
the immediate context and circumstances of their production can be
quite misleading.

It is within this framework, which regards the text as the product
of an entire network of cultural relations, rather than as a single and
discrete item, that the term "literary contacts" is most useful and ac-
quires substantial value. It offers a far more sophisticated means of
investigating cultural interference than the traditional, rather obscure
concept of "influence," which is rooted in Romanticist thinking. For
there are undoubtedly instances in the history of all literatures when
crucial segments, we feel, are dominated by what can be identified
and described as "borrowings" from "another literature," as "adapta-
tions" and "appropriations" of various kinds, which are displayed on
all levels. Speaking of elements' being "taken" from "another litera-
ture" in terms of "cultural contacts" or "cultural interference" implies
a different concept of literature and a whole range of hypotheses about
it (see Even-Zohar 1990). It also implies a different set of questions
regarding the nature of the relationships obtaining between two (or
more) literatures.

What, then, are "literary contacts"? An underlying assumption is
that "literary material" is conveyed from a source literature to a target
one by way of certain transmission procedures. But what precisely is
this "literary material"? Is it a theme, a motive, an idea, a pattern, a
structure, a genre? In what way can a text be regarded as the product
of more than one "homogeneous" body of literature?
These are, of course, only a few of the questions that are likely to be
addressed in any discussion of cultural interference. For no account
of an instance of cultural interference can be regarded as complete,
or even satisfactory, if it does not attempt to explain the extent to

279 Drory: Literary Contacts

which the source repertoire is available and accessible to its borrow-
ers, and without referring to the function fulfilled by these literary
contacts in the target system. In other words, any account must be
able to answer such questions as the following: What were the specific
conditions in the target literature that created the need for contact
with another literature (or other literatures)? In what ways precisely
did the target literature exploit the source literature repertoire? How
exactly have these contacts brought about a new dynamic within the
target literature?

The case of medieval Jewish literary contact with Arabic literature
illuminates the complex, if not tricky, nature of the problems involved
in the study of cultural interference. This complexity stems from the
fact that the investigation of this subject involves constantly calling into
question all of our overt and implied assumptions regarding literature
in particular, and culture in general, as well as many prevailing tradi-
tional views of Jewish literary history. Traditional ways of examining
the nature and scope of the field in question are often unrewarding,
even futile, and one would therefore do well to try to come up with
more adequate hypotheses than those that have been conventionally
asserted. For example, in tenth-century Babylon and Palestine cultural
activities took place that have been regarded as so inherently Jewish
that Arabic involvement was never considered to have played a part
in their emergence. Yet their appearance at a particular moment and
in a specific locale remains, for all intents and purposes, unaccounted
for unless one considers the interference of an Arabic model. There
are other instances (for example, in twelfth- and thirteenth-century
northern Spain and Provence) where the presence of an Arabic model
is not only well known, but is even considered a matter of common
knowledge. Yet a reexamination of the previously overlooked cultural
circumstances of such literary activities modeled on Arabic models
soon shows that it was not the Arabic-Jewish context that was respon-
sible for their evolution, but rather a third, local yet non-Arabic one.
These cultural phenomena all testify to the fact that literary contacts
may not necessarily be exhibited, as one would typically expect, in
visible, readily recognizable "concrete" items, such as "themes," "mo-
tives," or even "ideas." They may in effect pull the strings invisibly,
behind the scenes, like stage directors (or possibly authors) rather than
actors.

Let me demonstrate this by way of two medieval Jewish literary
products that evolved as a direct result of the association between Jew-
ish literature and Arabic culture. Moses ibn Ezra's Kitab al-muhadara wa
al-mudhakara, written in Judeo-Arabic, and Judah al-Harizi's Hebrew
Maqamat were both produced during the final phase of Jewish cultural
contact with Arabic, in twelfth- and thirteenth-century northern Spain

280 Drory: Literary Contacts

and Provence. Both are famous examples of Jewish works inspired by
Arabic models, yet it seems that their significance as products of Ara-
bic interference has been poorly understood and even misjudged, as
too little attention has been paid to the actual cultural circumstances
under which they were produced.

1. Kitab al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara of Moses ibn Ezra

1 . Defending the legitimacy of the art of rhetoric (including prose
writing) and the art of poetry composition (chapters one and
two).

2. "How is it that poetry is a natural aptitude of the Arabs but an
affectation among the other nations?" ¹) (chapter three).

3. "Did the Israelites have rhymed, metrical poetry during their
monarchic period, and when did they begin to compose poetry?"
(chapter four).

4. "Why are the Andalusian Jews more diligent and successful at
composing poetry than any other Jewish community?" (chap-
ter five).

5. A selection of opinions on this subject (chapter six [this chapter
in fact consists of a complaint against the local Jews, who, in their
lack of proper culture, do not understand Ibn Ezra's poetry and
consequently fail to respect him as they should]).

6. "Is there any truth to the claim made by some people that poetry
can be composed in a dream?" (chapter seven).

7. Practical advice for those wishing to compose Hebrew poetry
in accordance with Arabic taste, including a reference to deal-
ing with the audience and a survey of rhetorical figures (chap-
ter eight).

281 Drory: Literary Contacts

The first five chapters are logically arranged to form a single argu-
ment, complete in itself: Eloquence in general and poetry in par-
ticular are legitimate practices; the gift of poetry was bestowed upon
those best qualified to receive it, namely, the Arabs, who surpass other
nations in the practice of poetry, while such nations as the Indians,
Persians, and Greeks were granted faculties conducive to the study
and preservation of the sciences. The Arabs' superb gift of eloquence,
due in part to their geographical location in the middle iqlim, is best
expressed in their poetry.²) As descendants of the Jerusalemite expatri-
ates of the first exile, Andalusian Jews were inherently eloquent; thus,
after mastering Arabic and perceiving the beauty of Arabic poetry,
they naturally adopted Arabic poetic practices, developed the Hebrew
language, and gained pride of place among the Jews where eloquence
was concerned, particularly in the composition of poetry. Next follows
a survey of Andalusian Jewish poets, which in fact comprises a list of
their merits (fada'il) rather than a mere historical account, of the kind
also found in Arabic literature (e.g., Fada'il `ulama' al-andalus of Ibn
Hazm, cited in Nafh al-tib).³) This survey is clearly intended to support
the claim that the true and correct knowledge of poetry reposes in the
Andalusian Jews.

Hebrew poetry is thus openly acknowledged in this treatise as having
an Arabic model. Explaining Arabic poetics to Hebrew poets is the
very raison d'être of this treatise, so it seems only natural, if not self-
evident, to view it as a typical product of the Hebrew-Arabic cultural
context. But is the Hebrew-Arabic culture its only context?

Scholarly interest in this book during recent decades (see, for in-
stance, Pagis 1970) may have created an impression that the first six
chapters of Kitab al-muhadara (which actually comprise its core) are
but a collection of preliminary remarks on matters related to poetry,
intended to pave the way for its main subject, namely, the survey of
Arabic rhetorical figures. A careful reading of the argument devel-
oped throughout these chapters proves this impression to be mislead-
ing. It contains a series of ideological claims which, over and above
their comprising a defense of poetry (Scheindlin 1976), seek primarily
to convince the reader that the Arabic method of composing poetry
is the right one and that Jewish-Andalusian poets are its best prac-
titioners. A vital question to be posed here is: What public was this
ideology actually intended to address? If this book was indeed written

3. See al-Maqarri (1968: 4, 150-212, particularly 156-79, in Appendix). Lists
of fadai'l concerning poets and written in rhymed prose are to be found in the
maqamat literature; see, for instance, the first of al-Hamadhani's (1962: 10-17, in
Appendix) Maqamat (Al-Qaridiyya); see also al-Qayrawani (1983, in Appendix).

282 Drory: Literary Contacts

in a Hebrew-Arabic context, that is, for an audience already familiar
with and appreciative of Arabic poetics, and the Hebrew poetry writ-
ten accordingly, and for whom this was to be no more than a handbook
of poetry composition, why go to so much trouble to preach to the
converted, explaining basic ideas in such great detail? Wouldn't these
ideological tenets be self-evident to such an audience? They would
most likely have already formed part of what Clifford Geertz (1983)
calls "the local knowledge" of the community, that is, the ideas and
opinions shared by all members of the community, held to be com-
monplace and taken for granted, and would not need to be committed
to writing unless they were for some reason undergoing a change in
status.

If Ibn Ezra felt the need to formulate these ideas in writing, one
might rightly wonder whether there had been such a change in their
status. The fact that the book was written in northern Spain rather
than in al-Andalus is highly significant in this respect. This book was
written not for the benefit of a Jewish audience living in the midst of
Arabic culture, but for a Jewish audience that lived outside its domain,
in a different cultural atmosphere. There are indications pointing to
the fact that, unlike the Andalusian Jews, this audience probably did
not hold poetry in high regard, nor were its members perceived by
Ibn Ezra as connoisseurs of good (i.e., Arabic-style) poetry; this is ap-
parent from the sixth chapter of the book as well as from several of
Ibn Ezra's Hebrew poems in which he refers to the local Jews as igno-
rant and barbaric (see, e.g., Ibn Ezra 1935: 1, 19, 20, 101, 102; 1975:
104, in Appendix). The poet often complains of a sense of cultural
isolation and detachment from his civilized homeland, al-Andalus. It
is apparent that Ibn Ezra regards himself as the representative of a
high culture among "savages" (peraim, which also means "wild asses")
who do not acknowledge his superior position as an agent of the "cor-
rect" culture. He wrote his book out of a conviction that the Jewish-
Andalusian culture was in danger of oblivion in the foreign regions
of Edom and that he must do his best to preserve it, while at the same
time enlightening the local "savages" on the "right way" to compose
poetry.

Ibn Ezra's sense of isolation from his native culture and familiar
milieu can also be noted in the introduction to his other well-known
composition in Judeo-Arabic, Maqalat al-hadiqa fi ma`na al-magaz wa al-
haqiqa (or `Arugat ha-bosem, as he himself entitled it in Hebrew), which
is a philosophical adab (letters) compilation.⁴) Here, Ibn Ezra addresses

283 Drory: Literary Contacts

an audience with whom he obviously identifies, whose members he
regards as his cultural peers and who share his fate of being Jewish-
Andalusian emigrants in Christian Spain. He addresses them as "the
remaining noble men and the last of the faithful connoisseurs of adab,
even if your numbers are scarce and your status unrecognized, and
you are foreigners among ignorants." He urges them, in the name of
the "affection created by the common origin and the affinity caused by
the shared cultural bias," to take an interest in his book. From these
words, as well as from similar phrasing in the introduction to Kitab
al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara (Ibn Ezra 1975: 2-7, in Appendix), it is
clear that Ibn Ezra saw himself as a true representative of a heritage
whose status was declining.

Confronting in Christian Spain a Jewish cultural atmosphere so dif-
ferent from that of Andalusia was what prompted Ibn Ezra to write
this book. It caused him to examine his own cultural identity and for-
mulate it in a way as to define it in opposition to the local Jewish one.
Regarding his own cultural identity as Andalusian meant viewing it
as composed of two components - a Jewish component and an Arabic
one. Had he written a document of this nature back in Granada, Ibn
Ezra would most probably have dwelt solely on the Jewish component,
the Arabic one being self-evident and virtually unmarked. Represent-
ing "the Andalusian cause" within the Jewish community of north-
ern Spain made the Arabic component a marked part of Ibn Ezra's
Jewish identity, defining it as distinctly different from the northern-
Spanish Jewish identity. This accounts for his openly (more so than
any other Jewish-Andalusian author) declared acceptance of the ex-
emplary status of the Arabic model: following an Arabic model was
no problem for him, as it was for the later Jewish authors of northern
Spain and Provence; as an heir of the Andalusian legacy, Ibn Ezra had
absorbed that model as an integral part of his cultural world.

In order to create a text so Arabic-Hebrew in spirit, another, non-
Arabic cultural context was needed. It was the emergence of a new
Jewish literature in northern Spain and Provence, which would ulti-
mately be built upon a different paradigm than that of Muslim Spain,
that paved the way for the only formulation now extant of a theory of
Hebrew poetry inspired by Arabic poetics.

Regarding the reception of Kitab al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara by
the Jewish community in Christian Spain, it should be noted that the
book was not translated into Hebrew at the time, despite a massive
wave of contemporary interest in Arabic-Hebrew translations. The
book's translation occurred only with the renewed interest in Judeo-
Arabic literature that arose in the modern period (see Ibn Ezra 1924,
in Appendix). By contrast, Ibn Ezra's philosophical treatise, Maqalat
al-hadiqa, was translated at the time into Hebrew by Judah al-Harizi

284 Drory: Literary Contacts

(Idel 1975-76; Abramson 1975-76) and is known to have influenced
the Kabbalah in its initial stages. Ibn Ezra's liturgical poems were also
well received and widely distributed. This means that Ibn Ezra was far
from being a controversial literary figure and suggests that the liter-
ary ideology promoted by this particular treatise may have been losing
its appeal for the Jewish community in Christian Spain. The very act
of summoning up this Arabic-biased literary ideology in writing in-
dicates that its cultural status had changed and that it had begun to
be marked as a "museum piece" in need of preservation, maybe even
restoration, rather than as a viable way of perceiving one's own poetry.

2. Al-Harizi's Maqamat

Al-Harizi, who was born in Toledo, was living in northern Spain
during the second half of the twelfth century when an interest in
Arabic texts began to flourish in Jewish as well as Christian circles.
He became an Arabic-Hebrew translator and translated several Ara-
bic and Judeo-Arabic works, usually at the invitation of distinguished
patrons or scholars of the Jewish communities of northern Spain and
Provence, although he sometimes produced such translations on his
own initiative. Among his known translations are Moses ibn Ezra's
abovementioned Maqalat al-hadiqa fi ma`na al-magaz wa al-haqiqa (The
treatise of the garden on figurative and literal expressions), entitled
`Arugat ha-bosem in Hebrew (Idel 1975-76; Abramson 1975-76); Mai-
monides' Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh nebukhim [Maimonides 1904
{1851}, in Appendix]), his Introduction to the Mishnah (Hakdamot le-perush
ha-mishna [Maimonides 1960, in Appendix]), his commentary on the
first five tractates of the Mishnah order Zera^cim,⁵) and his Epistle on Res-
urrection (Ma'amar tehiyat ha-metim [Maimonides 1989, in Appendix]);

285 Drory: Literary Contacts

`Ali ibn Rudhwan's Epistle on Morals (Igeret `ali ha-ishmeeli [Ibn Rudh-
wan 1900, in Appendix]); Hunayn ibn Ishaq's Adab al-falasifa (Dicta of
the philosophers), entitled Musre ha-philosophim in Hebrew (Ibn Ishaq
1896, in Appendix); and Galen's Dialogue on the Soul (Galenus 1852, in
Appendix).

Between 1205 and 1215 (Schirmann 1961: III, 98) or between 1213
and 1216 (Habermann 1952: 113), while still in northern Spain or
in Provence, al-Harizi translated al-Hariri's Maqamat.⁶) He then trav-
eled to the East, where, sometime after 1216, he composed his own
Hebrew Maqamat, entitled Sefer tahkemoni and modeled on al-Hariri's
Arabic Maqamat.⁷) There he also composed a Judeo-Arabic Maqama, de-
scribing his journey to the East (Hirschfeld 1903; Stern 1964a, 1964b,
1969; Ratzaby 1980, 1988, in Appendix).

As mentioned earlier, this work is considered by any standard of the
comparative literature approach to represent the most salient example
of "Arabic influence" over Hebrew literature in its Andalusian "golden
age."⁸) Its Arabic-Hebrew context has generally been regarded as so
self-evident that it has been taken as plain fact, obvious enough to be
passed by as common knowledge. The focus of literary research has
thus been concentrated on the specific ways in which al-Hariri's Maqa-
mat inspired Sefer tahkemoni⁹) rather than on the cultural circumstances
of its production. Yet it seems that a reexamination of those over-
looked, or sometimes taken for granted, particular circumstances may
reveal that viewing this work exclusively from a general, unspecified
"Arabic-Hebrew" perspective (cf. Halkin 1963: 234-35) misses impor-
tant evidence for the reconstruction of Hebrew literature in northern
Spain and Provence by means of a new paradigm, quite different from
the Arabic-Hebrew one of al-Andalus mentioned above.

The particular circumstances that led to the composition of Sefer
tahkemoni will be clarified if we try to reconstruct al-Harizi's literary
awareness and his attitude toward cultural trends in Jewish society at
the time. It is al-Harizi himself who gives us the key to this reconstruc-
tion, as he tends to present quite lengthy explanations of his motives
for writing in the several introductions, or rather the dedications of
this work to different patrons, and in the introductions to some of his
Hebrew translations from the Arabic.

Following the contemporary custom among scholars to seek the

7. For modern editions, see al-Harizi (1845, 1924 [1883], 1899, 1952, in Appen-
dix); for an English translation, see al-Harizi (1965-73, in Appendix).

8. This thesis is most prominently exemplified in Goitein (1951).

9. See, for example, Schirmann (1930, 1979), Percikowitsch (1932), Stern (1946),
Lavi (1984), Dishon (1979), Dana (1975, 1984), and Ratzaby (1957).

286 Drory: Literary Contacts

patronage of distinguished figures in the community and support
themselves by dedicating their written works to these figures (the
same composition would often be dedicated to different patrons with
only the dedication changed), al-Harizi dedicated his compilation of
Hebrew maqamat to several different Jewish figures during the course
of his travels in the Orient.¹⁰) We can thus draw on more than one
dedication of Sefer tahkemoni in which al-Harizi takes great pains to ex-
plain - this too according to contemporary writing norms - how and
why he decided to compose this work.

Al-Harizi addresses this subject in the work's two Hebrew dedica-
tions: one, to Shemuel ben al-Barquli, forms the introduction to the
printed edition of Sefer tahkemoni (al-Harizi 1952: 4-18, in Appendix);
the other, to Yoshiyahu ben Yishai, forms the first maqama in the
edition (ibid.: 19-30). The same issue is also addressed in the Arabic
dedication to Sadid al-Dawla `Abd al-Qadir of Aleppo and his son Abu
Nasr (Drory 1991: 18-20). The Hebrew dedications are extended and
written in a highly stylized rhymed prose that closely resembles the
literary style of allegory (the first one in particular) or of the maqamat
genre (the second one). The Arabic dedication is far more concise, and
although it employs a rhetorical style reminiscent of Arabic rhymed
prose, it is still far clearer and more concrete than the rhetoric used
in the Hebrew dedications.

The First Hebrew Dedication

In the first dedication (al-Harizi 1952: 4-18; 1965-73: 23-43, in
Appendix), al-Harizi describes his state when he was prompted to
compose the Hebrew Maqamat as a state of ordination. Intellect woke
him from his sleep of folly and assigned him the task of reviving the
Hebrew language. The holy tongue, he was informed, was fast de-
teriorating, having been abandoned by its people, who now favored
Arabic:

They have enslaved the tongue of the Israelites to the tongue of Kedar
[i.e., Arabic] and they said: "Come and let us sell her to the Ishmaelites."
And they said to her: "Bow down, that we may go over." And they took her
and cast her into the pit until she perished among them. And the tongue
of Kedar blackened her, and like a lion, tore her. An evil beast devoured
her. All of them spurned the Hebrew tongue and made love to the tongue
of Hagar [i.e., Arabic]. They embraced the bosom of an alien. They de-
sired the wife of a stranger. They kissed her bosom, for stolen waters were

287 Drory: Literary Contacts

sweet to them. Their hearts were seduced when they saw how excellent
was the poetry that Hagar, Sarai's Egyptian handmaiden, had borne. And
Sarai was barren! (Al-Harizi 1965-73: 32 [Hebrew: al-Harizi 1952: 9-10],
in Appendix).

Bestirring himself, al-Harizi went to the fount of the Hebrew lan-
guage to draw water from its sources of wisdom and awaited a sign of
inspiration and instruction from God in the form of a young maiden
who was to appear before him, rinsing him with drinking water from
the flow of her sweet speech. A young maiden then indeed came forth,
refreshed him with the honey of her lips, and identified herself as
"your mistress, the Holy Tongue." He then "betroth[ed] her unto him
in righteousness and reverence without a [marriage] contract or inter-
course" (al-Harizi 1965-73: 34, in Appendix), and she later conceived
and gave birth to their offspring, a literary composition. Al-Harizi
then goes on to explain that the urge to compose his work had indeed
come from al-Hariri's Arabic Maqamat, which was, to his mind, a fine
illustration of the fact that there do exist other peoples who cherish
their language and preserve it with care, unlike the people of Israel,
who abandoned their native tongue and neglected it, at times even to
the point of despising it. (This, by the way, does not prevent al-Harizi
from boasting that everything of real value and quality in this Ara-
bic book is borrowed from the Hebrew.) In composing the Hebrew
Maqamat, he wishes to show the people of Israel the beauty and re-
sourcefulness of the Hebrew language and to convince them that it
is appropriate for all types of literary expression, which he then lists.
He stresses that many before him had tried to translate this work into
Hebrew, but none had done so with much success. He himself had
translated it at the request of "some generous men [nobles] of Spain,
(Sefarad)"; but after traveling to the East he had realized that it was
inappropriate, or even sinful, "to translate a book of another people's
goodly words as though the words of the living God were not among
us" and that one would do best to write in one's native tongue.

The Second Hebrew Dedication

288 Drory: Literary Contacts

in a language other than Arabic. At this, the author rises to the de-
fense of the Hebrew language, stating that Arabic is indeed superior
to all languages-except for Hebrew; unfortunately, since the Jews
were exiled and began adopting the languages of their host nations,
Hebrew has been gradually deteriorating; forsaken and forgotten, it
has slowly wasted away.

Yet, he continues, even the little Hebrew that has survived is ade-
quately equipped to ensure the composition of some splendid literary
works; this, in its own right, attests to the language's superiority. Why
then, asks the young lad, have none of the children of Israel written
any praiseworthy literary works in Hebrew that equal those written
in Arabic, thereby highlighting the qualities of the Hebrew language?
The author replies that, as for himself, he would find no difficulty in
writing a praiseworthy book in Hebrew, but the real problem is that,
with the lack of demand by the eastern Jewish public for books of this
nature, there is little point in producing them:

But the author, for whom shall he compose, and to the ears of whom shall
he speak, while the ears are deaf and the hands are tight, and the times have
shut up the eyes of creatures who are imprisoned in the house of passion,
and have smitten the men that were at the door of the house with blindness?
And there is not among them one who sees or who hears and no one takes
it to heart and no one cares. And if you should search the communities
of the world, from Egypt unto Babylon-you will not find one who loves
wisdom or who honors its possessor or who requites it with good reward.
And you know that as for precious books, their pearls are not composed
except for those who understand them or for those who requite them with
good reward. For they are not made for fools who deride them and scoff
at them.

Now the secret of all delightful wisdom is laid bare through three con-
ditions: when she finds a patron, or a sage, or a nobleman who longs for
her. Then wisdom sells herself to him as a hand-maid and her light shines
and is not withdrawn. And if one of these circumstances does not happen
to her, then she goes out for nothing, without money.

Therefore, in our generation the hallowed stones are poured out and
the most fine gold is changed, and poetry and rhetoric sell themselves for
bondmen and for bondwomen and there is none to buy them. And the gen-
erosity of patrons is like a staff of reed-upon tongues there is response
to it, but in hearts there is no shelter for it. And in every place where I
encamp, I call out: "Ho! For a man of intellect!" But there is none who
answers. And behold, the place is a place for cattle. And in city after city we
see every one of them asleep in the bosom of ignorance. And behold, there
is no man there, neither voice of man, but a tied horse and a tied ass, tied
and bound by the yoke of lust. And in this circumstance, how can the spirit
be stirred up or the intellect soul long to compose any word of wisdom, or
to speak of any theme of edification, or to set forth a lovely letter? Lo! Wis-
dom in the eyes of the children of our people is as one who puts a precious

289 Drory: Literary Contacts

stone in a sling or as one who casts pearls at the feet of cattle. (Al-Harizi
1965-73: 49-50 [Hebrew: al-Harizi 1952: 22-23], in Appendix)

The young man agrees, but, swayed by the author's valorization of
the Hebrew language, he nevertheless urges him to ignore the folly
of this generation and to write a book which will convince everyone
(including other nations) of Hebrew's superiority. Promising to attend
in every maqama and instruct the author as to what he should say, the
"Hebrew lad" also suggests that the book be dedicated to Yoshiyahu
ben Yishai and to his two sons, David and Shelomo. The author ac-
cepts this suggestion and promptly composes fifty Hebrew maqamat
which stylistically embody the beauty of the Hebrew language, yet are
not too academic and are intended for a wide readership. The young
man blesses the author, identifies himself as Heber the Kenite - the
hero common to all the maqamat - and promises to join the author in
all his future maqamat.

The Arabic Dedication

[And so] I have noticed that most of the Israelite community in these lands
of the East are devoid of the Hebrew language and denuded of its beautiful
garments. If one of them were asked about a Hebrew word, it would seem
as if he were being addressed in a foreign language. They are like those of
whom it is said: "For with stammering lips and with a strange tongue shall
it be spoken to this people" (Isaiah 28:11).¹²) I consider this to be one of the
most terrible misfortunes to come upon our nation during our exile. This
disease continues to spread among them, to the extent that most of them
are never capable of putting the (Hebrew) letters together, and when they
are, they are unable to understand or recognize what they have done, like
those of whom it is said: "And their children spoke half in the speech of
Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language" (Nehemiah 13:24).

When I saw that virtue was held in the hand of contempt, and that the
Holy Speech had been exchanged for ignorance and had come to be de-

12. All of the English translations of biblical verses are quoted from the Jewish
Publication Society of America (JPS) edition of the English Bible.

290 Drory: Literary Contacts

spised, I drew the swords of my determination (though their thoughts were
notched) and begged the clouds of my creative imagination for rain (though
they were empty of water). I then composed fifty Hebrew maqamat. I em-
bellished them with pearls of the Prophets' words and studded them with
precious stones of biblical phrases so that they turned out like embroidered
gowns or well-ordered necklaces. Their pages shine with beauty, and their
perfume is so strongly diffused that if the gardens once breathe it, they
cannot but try to sniff it again. When the narrator tells his graceful stories,
[even] the motionless mountains shake their shoulders (in astonishment).
That is because I have included [in this collection] every amusing story and
piquant tale; every enjoyable witticism and good joke(?) [lamha]; every ex-
hortation that moves to tears and every entertaining anecdote; and every
brilliant epistle and skillful writing such as would turn the grieving lover to
consolation, and the indifferent to the folly of passion. I have embellished
it with a variety of light and serious words and with panegyrics, both those
of good and bad effect; and I have followed the theme of obscenity to the
limit. I have expressed the virtues and nobility of every generous man, and
smitten the vile with the sword of mockery, now with the flat side of its
blade, and now with its point.

And so this book became one of the most useful of all written books of its
kind because its amusing anecdotes and charming stories are an incentive
to ignorant souls and an encouragement to distracted hearts to study the
Hebrew language and penetrate its wonderful secrets and extraordinary
subtleties. For I have collected in it many words that are obscure and diffi-
cult to understand so that if the reader is able to understand those opaque
expressions, he will have acquired a good deal of knowledge about the
Hebrew language, understood many of its meanings, and erected a massive
column of its structures. If he persists in reading these maqamat, Hebrew
will run smoothly off the tip of his tongue, and the bridle of his eloquence
and clear expression will be slackened. And with God's will we shall explain
every phrase that seems difficult or opaque in this collection. [These are
the titles of the maqamat, their number, and the subject matter of each and
every one of them.¹³)]

When the honorable head [of the community] Sadid al-Dawla `Abd al-
Qadir, son of the heads of the Academy and the glory of the community
of Aleppo, bestowed his generosity, charity, goodness, and grace upon my
tongue - even if my ink flowed from the oceans and if my pen were made
out of trees, I would never have been able to express my thanks for his kind-
ness - I thought it right to adorn this compilation with his name, unique
as he is in his generation, and with the name of his honorable and pre-
cious son, Abu Nasr. May the attention of God dwell with all its intensity
upon their pure house, with its distinguished virtues. These are the titles of
the maqamat according to their order.¹⁴) (For the Arabic, see Drory 1991:
18-19)

14. This translation, like all others in this paper, unless otherwise credited, is my
own. I am most grateful to Professor Raymond Scheindlin, who was kind enough

291 Drory: Literary Contacts

The arguments of this dedication, which are advanced here in a
rather straightforward way, can be summed up as follows: the majority
of eastern Jews have such a poor command of the Hebrew language
that they can hardly join the letters together to form words, let alone
understand the meaning of the words. In order to combat this igno-
rance, says the author, he has decided to compose fifty maqamat in
Hebrew, the language of the Prophets, in a variety of enchanting lit-
erary forms (Arabic, by their description) that will attract readers and
encourage them to learn the Hebrew language through reading the
book. There are many awkward words and difficult expressions in it,
which, when studied, will contribute to a good command of the struc-
ture and eloquence of Hebrew. The author also promises to provide a
glossary of the difficult words in the maqamat.

What is so striking about these dedications is the fact that no admi-
ration for Arabic literature, the peak of Arabic eloquence (to be ex-
pected in a work inspired by Arabic as much as this one), is expressed
here, but rather discontent and unhappiness at the declining condition
of the Hebrew language. Admiration for Arabic eloquence is men-
tioned as a seemingly popular, but nevertheless incorrect, sentiment.
Al-Harizi is intrigued not so much by the idea of Arabic literary or
linguistic superiority as by the Jewish cultural situation in the East, of
which he became aware while visiting there and which he considered
to be worrisome. In the East he discovered a Jewish public who were
not as familiar with Hebrew as he expected them to be, who were un-
interested in Hebrew writing and probably highly taken with Arabic
culture.¹⁵) Irritated by this situation, he raised his voice in protest; he
wished to redirect the eastern Jewish public back to their forsaken
language by proving that Hebrew was no less suitable for literary and
eloquent writing than Arabic and was perhaps even more suitable.

Why should al-Harizi have been so irritated and disturbed by this
situation? Was it not common among Jews living within the Muslim
culture (in the East as well as in Muslim Spain) to write more in Arabic
than in Hebrew? In fact, it was customary to write in both languages
while maintaining a very clear-cut division of functions between the
two. Arabic served for all informative purposes, that is, the referen-
tial function of communication (to use Roman Jakobson's well-known
scheme¹⁶)), while Hebrew was reserved for mainly literary-aesthetic

15. Testimony to the fact that eastern Jews also read Arabic maqamat is pro-
vided by a Geniza fragment of Ibn Butlan's Risalat da`wat al-attiba', found in the
Taylor-Schechter collection in Cambridge (see Baker 1990).

16. See Jakobson (1981: 21-28). Jakobson addresses the basic functions of ver-

292 Drory: Literary Contacts

and ceremonial functions (functions which were traditionally asso-
ciated in Jewish literature). Thus we find Jews writing (Judeo-)Arabic
biblical and talmudic exegesis, law, theology, philosophy, linguistics,
poetics, letters (official and private), but rarely poetry.¹⁷) Poetic texts, be
they liturgical or secular, in poetry or prose, were written in Hebrew,
their poetic-aesthetic intention clearly marked by their highly orna-
mented rhetorical style and by their intensive play among semantic
and nonsemantic linguistic features. This division of functions was
already established in Jewish writing by the first half of the tenth
century, when Arabic models of writing first found their way into Jew-
ish literature.¹⁸) and was maintained practically throughout the entire
Muslim period. The impact of this division on Jewish culture was so
strong and at the same time so "naturalized" that one could find in
the same book poems written in Hebrew with introductory passages
giving details of the circumstances under which each poem had been
composed, written in Arabic. It was therefore quite natural for Jews
not to take much interest in the business of writing in Hebrew, which
provided poetic registers only, when a full range of registers and liter-
ary forms was readily available in Arabic, comprising a tradition that
had been viable for over two hundred years.

What was so irritating to al-Harizi, then, about such a well-estab-
lished, venerable tradition of Jewish use of Arabic as the main written
language? The reason for his attitude will become clear only if we con-
sider al-Harizi's cultural background and the ideological framework
within which he worked during his earlier years in northern Spain
and Provence. In the dedications cited above, al-Harizi addressed the
poor command of Hebrew by Jews in the East. But, as already men-
tioned, he himself was not a native of the East, but had traveled there
from northern Spain, where Jewish writing was undergoing a com-
plete revolution at the time. In northern Spain the traditional division
of functions described above was in the process of breaking down, and
Hebrew had begun to take over more and more functions which had
traditionally been fulfilled by Arabic, gradually replacing Arabic as
the major written language of Jewish literature. As a result, new lit-
erary genres were developing in Hebrew, either through translations
from Arabic or in original forms of Hebrew writing.

The struggle between Hebrew and Arabic over written-language

17. Poetry written by Jews in Arabic (using Arabic, not Hebrew, characters) was
considered to be Muslim, not Jewish, literature. it thus survived mainly in Arabic
literary anthologies, not in Jewish compilations (see Drory 1988: 52-53; 1992).

18. Not without Hebrew competing with Arabic over the referential function; for
a full discussion of this matter, see Drory (1988: 41-54; 1992).

293 Drory: Literary Contacts

functions is clearly reflected in the prefaces added by contemporary
northern-Spanish Jewish authors to their Hebrew works, in which they
argue that the Hebrew language is suitable for all literary purposes. in
the preface to his maqamat collection, for example, Jacob ben El`azar
(late twelfth to early thirteenth century) places the argument for writ-
ing in Arabic in the mouths of "Ishmaelite sages" who mock the Jews,
asking, "Is there a language more suitable for praising or cursing, or
for rousing love than the language of the Arabs? / And for recount-
ing wars and chronicles - are any words sweeter than our words?" To
which the author responds, addressing his own people,

You speak to me in beautiful words and say: "Does not the Holy
Tongue lag behind?"
[Not at all!]-it puts song in the mouth of the dumb, so that he can
sing fluently and not stumble,
[You can] praise or curse in it, speak in rhyme¹⁹) or tell a tale!

And again, in the following lines:

My people, what is it that you lack?
You can use my words to say whatever you want
and be sure that I will supply all your [literary] needs.
Speak with ease and do not fail,
"put forth a riddle, and speak a parable" (Ezechiel 17:2),
read the book of tales [lit., parables] which I have composed,
"know therefore and discern" (Daniel 9:25).
(Schirmann 1939: 216-17 [Hebrew])

Al-Harizi himself supplies, in the first dedication to Sefer tahkemoni,
a long list of literary forms which he included in his Maqamat:

And I gathered together in this book many parables and sweet themes.
Among them various poems and striking riddles, words of instruction,
songs of friendship, proverbs of right things; words of admonition, events
of the time and tidings of the years. The remembrance of death and the
place of the shadow of death; words of repentance, and pardoning of guilt.
The delights of love and songs of love. The betrothing of women, bridal
canopy and marriage, and matters of divorce; the drunkenness of drunk-
ards; the asceticism of ascetics; wars of heroes and events of kings; the
adventures of the road; songs of praise, and supplications of prayers; ethics
of the sages, and associations of the upright. The passion of lovers; gardens
and hamlets; words of princes; the patter of children; the hunt of hunters;
the treachery of deceivers, and the folly of fools; the slandering of scorners,
the blaspheming of revilers. And wonderful songs and epistles written in a

294 Drory: Literary Contacts

marvelous way: in order that this book may be as a garden in which are all
manner of dainties and pleasant plantations. And in it each seeker will find
his heart's desire and will attain of his longing sufficient for his need of that
which he lacks. (Al-Harizi 1965-73: 36-37 [Hebrew: al-Harizi 1952: 13],
in Appendix)

There is, of course, an element of conventionality in this list of liter-
ary materials and forms, as it was customary among Arabic authors of
the adab genre (and the maqamat authors followed suit²⁰)) to present
such lists in the prefaces to their writings. Yet, put in this particular
ideological setting, it is also meant to declare Hebrew an adequately lit-
erary language in which one could, and should, address in writing any
literary subject, using any literary form available. Declarations of this
sort typically appeared at the time when Arabic was being displaced
from its position as the main language for referential (informative)
writing and Hebrew was taking over. In this particular case, the decla-
ration prefaces a belletristic Hebrew text which actually signifies both
the referential and the aesthetic functions of language. Such declara-
tions, or even debates regarding Hebrew's adequacy as a scientific and
informative language, are also found within texts actually written in
Hebrew throughout the entire period.

But the most prominent sign of the breakdown of the traditional
division of functions between Arabic and Hebrew is the abundance
of translations into Hebrew that were produced in northern Spain
and Provence during this period (Steinschneider 1956 [1893]; Halkin
197 1). Once again, it is the introductions to the translations, espe-
cially the earlier ones, which reflect a particular awareness of "a new
state" as regards the use of Hebrew for writing - an awareness differ-
ent from the traditional one. The previous situation, whereby it had
been customary to write virtually everything in Arabic, now seemed
somewhat incomprehensible, even strange, with the result that some
of the translators now felt the need to explain why previous genera-
tions of Jews had written in Arabic rather than in Hebrew. The main
explanation given was that people in earlier times had failed to master
Hebrew, so, if they wished to be understood, writers had no choice
but to write in Arabic.

Moses ben Giqatilla (mid-eleventh century) says in the introduction
to his translation of Judah Hayyug's Kitab huruf al-lin:

Forasmuch as a strange people bears rule over us, and we are swallowed up
among nations of a deep speech and of a hard language.... for these rea-
sons therefore Jewish grammarians were obliged to compose their works
in Arabic, this being current in the mouth of a powerful people and easy
of comprehension, while Hebrew was obscure; the former clear and intelli-

295 Drory: Literary Contacts

gible, the latter of doubtful meaning; as it was proper to explain the obscure
by the clear, the difficult by the intelligible. The men of Zarephath, how-
ever, that dwell in the dominions of our brethren, the children of Esau [i.e.,
the Christians], do not for the most part understand Arabic, while they
dearly love and are accustomed to speak the holy tongue. (Hayyug 1985
[1870]: 1-2 [English section]; ibid.: 1 [Hebrew section], in Appendix)

Judah ibn Tibbon (Granada 1120 - Lunel 1190), in the introduction
to his translation of Faraid al-qulub (Duties of the heart) by Bahya ibn
Paquda, says more bluntly:

And after them [i.e., the sages of the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods,
of the Mishnah and Talmud] most of the Geonim were in exile in the Ish-
maelite kingdom [i.e., the Muslim kingdom] in Iraq, Palestine, and Persia,
and they spoke the Arabic language. All the Israelite communities in those
places spoke that language. They composed all their commentaries on the
biblical books, the orders of the Mishnah and the Talmud, in Arabic, as they
did with most of their other works and with the responses to the queries
that were asked of them. This is because all the people understood that
language, and also because Arabic is an ample language that is adequate to
every subject and every speaker's and author's needs. Its idiom is straight-
forward, clear, and capable of speaking to the point better on any subject
than is possible in Hebrew. For all we have of the Hebrew language is that
which is found in the books of the Bible, and this does not suffice for all of a
speaker's needs. Furthermore, they intended their compositions to benefit
the simple people, who did not have a good command of the Holy Tongue.
Therefore most of their compositions, on whatever subject they wrote, be
it biblical or other studies, were in Arabic. (Ibn Paquda 1949 [1928]: 56-57
[Hebrew], in Appendix)

And in the introduction to his translation of Sefer ha-riqma by Ibn
Ganah, he says:

He [Ibn Ganah] wrote these books in Arabic, the language of the people
amongst whom he was living, because so were most of the compositions of
the Geonim and the sages in the Ishmaelite kingdom. This is because Ara-
bic is ample and eloquent, and its speaker finds nothing lacking in it. But
of the Holy Tongue we only have what is found in the Bible, and that would
not provide for all of a speaker's needs. Also, most of the people do not
understand Hebrew, but only a few, and the rest of their contemporaries
are familiar with Arabic, and so they chose it for their writings. But the
people of this exile of the land of the Franks, and those of the Christian
territories, do not know Arabic; those works would be like a sealed book to
them, and would be inaccessible unless they were translated into Hebrew.²¹)
(Ibn Ganah 1964 [1929]: 4 [Hebrew], in Appendix)

296 Drory: Literary Contacts

In his translation of Maimonides' Introduction to the Mishnah, al-
Harizi voices, in an elegantly rhymed prose style, a more radical opin-
ion:

When I understood what they [i.e., the Jews of Marseilles, who ordered the
translation from him] said, I hurried without waiting, fulfilled their word,
and translated the commentary of this master [i.e., Maimonides] from Ara-
bic into the Holy Tongue. I turned its lights from the west (the direction of
the setting sun) towards the east (the direction of the rising sun).... I have
translated it from the dark language of Kedar [i.e., Arabic] into the lan-
guage of gold and glory. This is because I was jealous for the commentaries
which the Torah carried, which deserve the rights of the firstborn, and
yet were born on the knees of Hagar, Sarah's slave, while Sarah remained
barren. In wonderment, I asked: "Can holiness and worldliness be joined?
How can, light and darkness be united?" But the sage's [i.e., Maimonides']
intention was to give wisdom to the simple, so he wrote it in Arabic for the
sake of those who do not know the Holy Tongue but only Hagarite [Arabic),
and their language is "half in the speech of Ashdod and [they] could not
speak in the Jews' language" (Nehemiah 13:24). So I made an effort, took
courage and removed foreign expressions from this holy treatise, so it left
a prison to become a king; it washed in pure water, took off its [old] clothes
and put on [new] ones. I translated its words into eloquent phrases and
sweetened it with the sweetness of the Holy Tongue. (Maimonides 1960: 4
[Hebrew], in Appendix)

Al-Harizi no longer wishes to be understanding, or sympathetic, to-
ward a practice so natural to Jewish literature in the East and in Mus-
lim Spain, that is, using Arabic to write texts which bear upon the
sacred scriptures or the Jewish codes of law. For him, this practice is
unacceptable, impossible, and obsolete and must be modified and cor-
rected. By translating into Hebrew Jewish works originally written in
Arabic, al-Harizi feels that he is enabling these works to revert to their
"true" language, thus restoring the nation's lost treasures.

Judah al-Harizi as well as Judah ibn Tibbon and his son Samuel
(Provence, c. 1160 - c. 1230) were among the first translators into
Hebrew, as were also Abraham bar Hiyya, Moses ben Giqatilla, Joseph
Qimhi, Jacob ben El`azar, almost all of whom were emigrants to north-
ern Spain and Provence. They translated mainly jewish-Arabic works,
and sometimes the same work would be translated by more than
one translator, as in the case of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed,
which was translated by both al-Harizi and Samuel ibn Tibbon. It
may be typical of the vanguard to feel an (almost compulsive) need to
comment frequently on their profession, thereby legitimizing it over
and over again. Both al-Harizi and Judah ibn Tibbon did so, as did
Judah ibn Tibbon's son Samuel, while at the same time they contested

197 Drory: Literary Contacts

and criticized each other's work. We are thus afforded a fairly well-
rounded view of how the translators themselves perceived the task of
translating from Arabic into Hebrew at the time. These comments re-
veal that al-Harizi and the Tibbons each viewed their mission quite
differently: al-Harizi's overall attitude was one of unequivocal accep-
tance of the Hebrew-for-writing ideology, and he was in full accord
with his mission. He seemed happy to convert into Hebrew any text
he may have been asked to, convinced that by so doing he was simply
reclaiming what had originally been there to begin with, but which
had, over the ages, been lost or even "stolen." He sought to prove that
the Hebrew language could be appropriately used in a wide range of
written forms, so, over and above translating, he also wrote his own
maqamat, comprising a handbook of Hebrew styles intended to en-
courage eastern Jews to use Hebrew as a written language. This is why
he declares his intention to provide the reader of the Maqamat with a
glossary.

The Tibbons, on the other hand, regarded their work very dif-
ferently. Judah ibn Tibbon, for instance, expresses explicit doubts
about the very possibility of translating into Hebrew and is skeptical
about the quality of such translations (Ibn Paquda 1949 [1928]: 58,
in Appendix). He addresses the difficulties facing the translator, dis-
cussing the fact that Arabic is an "ample" language, while Hebrew is
"short" [i.e., limited] and sparse. His attitude movingly attests to the
harsh difficulties facing an Andalusian newcomer to northern Spain
who was accustomed to writing in Arabic and was forced to switch to
Hebrew, undertaking to transform it into a language capable of ac-
commodating topics for which, in fact, it had no working registers (cf.
Halkin 1963: 239-41).

Debates and discussions concerning the functions of Hebrew, its ability
to supply a full range of literary modes of expression, and specific
modes for translation were all part of a single overall process: the cre-
ation of a new Jewish literature. Since Arabic literature still retained
its high status in northern Spain and Provence, the construction of this
new Jewish literature was accomplished mainly by borrowing from
the Arabic literature. This is why northern-Spanish Jewish literature
resembles Andalusian literature up to a point and is usually regarded
as a direct extension of it. But in fact the paradigm on which the
new Jewish literature in Christian Spain was based was quite different
from the dominant paradigm of Jewish literature during the Mus-
lim period. The foremost innovation was the production of the new
literature mainly (indeed, almost exclusively) in Hebrew. Writing in
Hebrew was accompanied by ideological declarations which assigned

298 Drory: Literary Contacts

to Hebrew writing the role of marking a particular collective or ethnic
identity that could be called "national."

What were the reasons for imposing this new role on Hebrew at
this specific point in time and place? To what extent did the local
environment motivate the use of vernacular languages (such as Cas-
tilian and the Romance languages) in writing or the renaissance in
Arabic-Latin translations, introducing new literary practices into Jew-
ish society, practices to be performed in Hebrew? These questions are
still open and remain to be answered. Yet one thing does seem clear:
if not for the prevailing cultural climate in northern Spain and Pro-
vence at the time, al-Harizi would most probably never have written
his Hebrew maqamat. For although they seem so Arabic in character,
as products of the Jewish-Arabic culture they would have been most
unlikely, particularly in the East.²²) There would have been no reason
to upset the traditional Arabic-Hebrew division of functions prevalent
during the Muslim period, thereby bringing about new forms of writ-
ing in Hebrew.²³) In other words, it took a non-Muslim and non-Arabic
cultural atmosphere, that of Christian Spain, to produce a literary
work so notably Arabic-Hebrew in nature.

23. The fact that while still in the East, but apparently after he had composed Sefer
tahkemoni (Stern 1964b: 199, in Appendix), al-Harizi also wrote a Judeo-Arabic
maqama seems to indicate that he himself realized that there was no great pub-
lic for Hebrew writing there and that he would have to write in Arabic in order
to make his voice heard. Explaining why he wrote in Arabic, he notes, "When I
visited Baghdad the Jewish community there turned its back on me and treated
me rudely. I have therefore decided to compose a maqama in Arabic about them,
in which I will expose some of their hidden vices; ... let me quote here from
this maqama so that it will serve to commemorate what they have done" (Stern
1964a: 150-5 1, in Appendix). His explanation clearly echoes the argument used
about two hundred years earlier, when Arabic first began competing with Hebrew
for the referential function of Jewish writing, namely, that one should write in
Arabic if one wants the message to be clearly conveyed and understood by all (cf.
Drory 1988: 46-48; 1992). Such an argument would accompany, needless to say,
a refutation or a piece of satirical writing.

299 Drory: Literary Contacts

Appendix

Primary Texts/Translations

al-Hamadhani, Badi` al-Zaman
1962 Maqamat, edited by M. `Abd al-Hamid (Cairo).

al-Hariri, al-Qasim b. `Ali
1872 Mahberot itiel, translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by Thomas Chenery
(London).
1929 Maqamat (Cairo).
1951 Mahberot itiel, translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by Y. Peretz (Tel Aviv:
Mahbarot le-Sifrut).

al-Harizi, Judah
1845 Die ersten Makamen aus dem Tahkemoni oder Divan des Charisi nebst dessen
Vorrede, edited by S. 1. Kaempf (Berlin).
1899 Tahkemoni, edited by A. Kaminka (Warsaw: Schuldberg).
1924 [1883] Tahkemoni, edited by P. de Lagarde (Hanover [Göttingen 1883]).
1952 Tahkemoni, edited by Y. Toporowsky (Tel Aviv: Mahbarot le-Sifrut).
1965-73 The Tahkemoni of Judah al-Harizi, translated by V. E. Reichert (Jerusa-
lem: R. H. Cohen's Press Publishers).

Hayyug, Judah
1985 [1870] Two Treatises on Verbs Containing Feeble and Double Letters by R. Jehuda
Hayug of Fez, translated into Hebrew from the Original Arabic by R. Moses Gikatilia of
Cordova; to which is added the Treatise on Punctuation by the same author, translated
by Aben Ezra, edited by J. W. Nutt (Jerusalem [London and Berlin 1870]).

Hirschfeld, Hartwig
1903 "Fragment of an Unknown Work by Judah al-Harizi," Jewish Quarterly
Review 16: 683-88, 693-97.

Ibn Ezra, Moses
1924 Sefer shirat israel (Kitab al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara), translated by B.-Z.
Halper (Leipzig: A. Y. Schtibel).
1935 Shire ha-hol, edited by H. Brody (Berlin: Schocken).
1975 Kitab al-muhadara wa al-mudhakara, edited by A. S. Halkin (Jerusalem:
Mekize Nirdamim).

Ibn Ganah, Jonah
1964 [1929] Seferha-riqma, translated by Judah ibn Tibbon, edited by M. Vilenski
(Jerusalem: ha-Akademya la-Lashon ha-'Ibrit [Berlin 1929]).

Ibn Ishaq, Hunayn
1896 Sefer musre ha-philosophim (Sinnsprüche der Philosophen), translated by Judah
al-Harizi, edited by A. Loewenthal (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kauffmann).

Ibn Paquda, Bahya
1949 [1928] Sefer hobot ha-lebabot (Fara'id al-qulub), translated by Judah ibn Tib-
bon, edited by A. Zifroni (Tel Aviv: Mahbarot le-Sifrut [Jerusalem: J. Juno-
vitch]).

Ibn Rudhwan, `Ali
1900 Igeret `ali ha-ishmeeli, translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by M. Grossberg
(London).

Kimhi, David
1952 [1862] Sefer mikhlol, edited by Y. Rittenberg (Jerusalem [Lyck 1862]). David
Kimhi's Hebrew Grammar "Mikhlol," translated and annotated by W. Chomsky
(New York: Bloch).

300 Drory: Literary Contacts

Kimhi (Kimchi), Joseph
1887 Sefer ha-galuj, edited by H. J. Mathews (Berlin: Mekize Nirdamim).

Maimonides, Moses
1904 [1851] Moreh nebukhim, translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by L. Schloss-
berg and S. Scheyero (Warsaw [London 1851]).
1960 Hakdamot le-perush ha-mishna, translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by M. D.
Rabinovitz (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rab Kuk).
1989 "Ma'amar tehiyat ha-metim," translated by Judah al-Harizi, edited by A. S.
Halkin, Kobez Al Yad (Minora Manuscripta Hebraica) 9: 129-50.

al-Maqarri, Ahmad b. Muhammad
1968 Nafh al-tib min ghusn al-andalus al-ratib, edited by I. 'Abbas (Beirut).

al-Qayrawani, Ibn Sharaf
1983 Rasa'il al-intiqad (fi naqd al-shi'r wa al-shu'ara'), edited by H. 'Abd al-Wahhab
(Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Gadid).

Ratzaby, Yehuda
1980 "An Arabic Maqama by al-Harizi" (Hebrew), Criticism and Interpretation 15:
5-51.
1988 "An Arabic Maqama by al-Harizi" (Hebrew), Criticism and Interpretation 23:
51-55.

Stern, Samuel M.
1964a "A New Description by Judah al-Harizi of His Tour to Iraq" (Hebrew),
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