Mapping Knowledge

Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Edited by
Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-España

CNERU –– The Warburg Institute

__________________________________
Oriens Academic
 CNERU –– The Warburg Institute

Series Arabica Veritas

1

Chief Editors
Charles Burnett •• Pedro Mantas-España

Advisory Board
Alexander Fidora •• Dag Nikolaus Hasse •• José Meirinhos
David Nirenberg •• Rafael Ramón Guerrero
 Mapping Knowledge
Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Edited by
Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-España
Arabica Veritas: Mapping Knowledge: Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle
Ages. Edited by Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-España. –– Cordoba : CNERU (Cordoba
Near Eastern Research Unit) –– The Warburg Institute (London) –– Oriens Academic, 2014
(Series Arabica Veritas ; vol. 1)
ISBN : 978-84-616-9744-1

Edit: Oriens Academic –– CNERU –– 7KH:DUEXUJ,QVWLWXWH

Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit The Warburg Institute

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras University of London
Universidad de Córdoba Woburn Sq.
Plaza Cardenal Salazar, 3 London WC1H 0AB
14071 –– Córdoba, Spain UK

http://www.uco.es/cneru
cneru@uco.es

Print: Imprentatecé, S.C.A.

Ingeniero Torres Quevedo, s/n
Córdoba (Spain)

Cover design by Manuel Marcos Aldón & Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala

ISBN: 978-84-616-9744-1
DL: CO--2014

© Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit

‹7KH:DUEXUJ,QVWLWXWH
‹7KHDXWKRUV

The printing of this volume has benefited from the collaboration of the Proyecto estrategico del
Instituto de Filosofia de la Universidade do Porto (Ref. PEst-C/FIL/UI0502/2013) financed with
the support of FEDER funds through the Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade -
COMPETE (Ref.ª FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022671) and some national funds through the
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - Portugal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in
any retrieval system, nor transmitted in any form without written permission
from the Publisher

Printed in Spain
 CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................... vii

BEFORE THE NEW WORLD ORDER IN THE NEAR EAST

EBIED, Rifaat
Quotations from the Works of St. Athanasius the Great in Peter of
Callinicus’’ magnum opus ‘‘Contra Damianum’’ ................................................ 3
DE GARAY SUÁREZ-LLANOS, Jesús

The Work of Proclus and its Reception in Byzantium .................................. 25

MARTÍNEZ CARRASCO, Carlos
Arabs in the face of Christianity. Creating an identity before the
emergence of Islam ................................................................................. 39
MONFERRER-SALA, Juan Pedro
‘‘New skin for old stories’’. Queens Zenobia and Mãwiya, and
Christian Arab groups on the Eastern frontier during the 3rd––4th
centuries CE .......................................................................................... 71
QUIROGA PUERTAS, Alberto J.
‘‘Philostratean Bishops’’ and the Rhetoric of the Empire ................................ 99
SOTO CHICA, José and GARCÍA AMORÓS, Maila
L’’Ambassade de Zemarque de Cilicie. De Constantinople aux
frontières de Chine ............................................................................... 109
TORALLAS TOVAR, Sofía.
Egyptian Burial Practice in a Period of Transition: on Embalming in
Christian Times .................................................................................... 129
 THE CREATION OF A NEW WORLD

BURNETT, Charles
The Roads of Córdoba and Seville in the Transmission of Arabic
Science in Western Europe .................................................................... 143
GILETTI, Ann
An Arsenal of Arguments: Arabic Philosophy at the Service of
Christian Polemics in Ramon Martí’’s Pugio fidei ........................................ 153
HIEDRA RODRÍGUEZ, Enrique
Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph. A Muslim Poet at the Gate of the Jews ................... 167
LÁZARO PULIDO, Manuel
Le transfert de la connaissance dans le Regnum Suevorum. St. Martin
de Dume (séc. VI) ................................................................................ 181
MANTAS-ESPAÑA, Pedro
Was Adelard of Bath in Spain? Transmission of Knowledge in the
First Half of the Twelfth Century ............................................................ 195
MASSAIU, Maurizio
The Use of muqarnas in ণammƗdid Art. Some Preliminary
Observations ........................................................................................ 209
MEIRINHOS, José
Averroes and Averroisms in Portuguese. Medieval and Early Modern
Scholastic authors ................................................................................. 231
NIRENBERG, David
‘‘Judaism’’, ‘‘Islam’’, and the Dangers of Knowledge in Christian
Culture, with special attention to the case of King Alfonso X, ‘‘the
Wise’’, of Castile .................................................................................. 253
RAMÓN-GUERRERO, Rafael
Cristianos y musulmanes en Bagdad en el siglo X ....................................... 277
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph
A Muslim Poet at the Gate of the Jews

Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

University of Córdoba

At The Gate of the Jews

The poem by AbŊ Ԟâmir Ibn Shuhayd (992-1035),1 entitled alã bãb al-yahŊd (ɸAt the
Gate of the Jewsɹ) by its editor James Dickie, is a distich, presumably a passage
from a larger panegyric. Its preservation is thanks to Qalãɹid al-iqyãn by al-Fatͥ b.
Khãqãn, and al-Nafͥ al-έibb by al-Maqqarč, in which it is mentioned twice; one
instance taken from al-Qalãɹid and a second from an unidentified source.2
There are several translations of the poem, some of which will be discussed
later on. However, our reference will be James Dickie’’s:

‘‘At the Jew’’s Gate they raised a sun

Whose beauty prevented its eclipse
Seeing him at their gate as a prince
The Jews imagine him to be Joseph’’.3

The fragmentary state in which the poem has been preserved means scholars
have had very limited elements to work with in its analysis, so the few comments
on this piece relate to its allusion to Joseph and the mention of the bãb al-yahŊd.
The fact the poem explicitly mentions ‘‘The Gate of the Jews’’ is key in its
fragmentary preservation, since it has become a required citation in the different
studies on urban topography in medieval Cordoba (see Illustration). For example,
al-Maqqarč includes it in a chapter about the description of Cordoba, specifically
in a segment referring to its gates, as proof of Cordobaɹs North Gate having once
had the name bãb al-yahŊd.4 This reference has led several authors to question
whether this toponym may have been related to a possible Jewish settlement of

1
For Ibn Shuhayd’’s biography see J. Dickie, ‘‘Ibn Shuhayd. A biographical and critical study’’,
Al-Andalus 29:2 (1964), pp. 243-310.
2
J. Dickie (ed. and trans.), El Dčwãn de Ibn ŠŠuhayd al-Andalusč, 382––426 H = 992––1035 c., Córdoba:
Real Academia de Córdoba, Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 [published 1977], p. 283.
3
J. Dickie, ‘‘Ibn Suhayd. A biographical and critical study’’, Al-Andalus 29:2 (1964), p. 294.
4
P. de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain; by Ahmed Ibn Mohammed
al-Makkari London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1843, Vol I, p. 207.
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

the time in the northern area of the city.5 The discovery of the ninth century
Hebrew gravestone of Yehudah Bar AkĮn6 in the area identified by Ibn Bashkuwãl
in his work Kitãb al-΢ilah, as the Jewish cemetery of Qutah Rasho –– located on the
path leading north from ‘‘The Gate of the Jews’’ –– compels us to reconsider this
former theory along with the possibility of a Jewish settlement of the time in the
northern area of the medina. It is here where this poem may play a key role.

Tenth Century Córdoba by Levi-Provençal

The fact the author places the action ‘‘at the gate of the Jews’’ and explicitly
attributes to it the events depicted (the raising of a sun, its assimilation to a
prince and his subsequent identification with Joseph) raises some questions:
what information about the Jews in Ibn Shuhaydɹs times can we gather from this
poem? Is Ibn Shuhayd depicting what he sees in his own words and using the
literary resources of Arabic poetry of the time? Or is he simply echoing specific
Jewish usages of these elements and their associations, since he attributes the
association of these elements to the Jews? In other words, could a Jewish

5
On this discussion, see I. Larrea and E. Hiedra, ‘‘La lápida hebrea de época emiral del
Zumbacón. Apuntes sobre arqueología funeraria judía en Córdoba’’, Anales de la arqueología
cordobesa 2 (2009-10), pp. 327-342.
6
I. Larrea and E. Hiedra, p. 335.

168
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

interpretation of the elements used by Ibn Shuhayd help us cast some light on its
enigmatic meaning?
It is without doubt that any interpretation beyond the strictly literal seems
risky, due to the fragmentary state of the poem’’s preservation; nevertheless, this
article will seek parallels in the usage of these elements within Jewish poetry of
the time, in order to obtain a Jewish interpretation of the events depicted in the
poem.

Ibn Shuhayd and Jews

Little written evidence has been preserved of the links Ibn Shuhayd may have had
with Jewish society. All James Dickie says is that ‘‘He frequented the society of the
Jews and Mozarabs [...]. In an epistle he was later to address to AbŊ l-Qãsim al- Iflčlč,
he speaks of the Israelites’’ degradation to the status of apes (just as Christians
were called pigs in allusion to their pork-eating habits). Elsewhere he alludes
briefly to the play of the Jew, evidently some kind of mime’’.7Also, in Ibn Bassãmɹs al-
Dhakhčra (1:233), we find a reference by Ibn Shuhayd himself to a Jew named Joseph
Ibn Isͥãq al-Isrãɹčlč, who apparently belonged to his literary circle and whose
intelligence and literary talent he esteemed deeply.8 Due to this, and the few
ambiguous pieces of data at our disposal, we are not able to draw major
conclusions concerning the nature of his relationship to the Jewish population.9
However, we do know Ibn Shuhayd must have been familiar with the bãb al-
yahŊd and the activities that took place there. In the vicinity of the bãb al-yahŊd,
stood the hãɹir (ɸgardenɹ) of his good friend al-Zayyãlč,10 where, as gathered by Ibn
Khãqãn in Qalãɹid, he ‘‘had (……) periods of comfort and ease both morning and
evening. Fate allowed him in these times what he wanted and the pleasures of
sobriety and inebriation succeeded one another in this experience.’’11 The extent

7
J. Dickie, ‘‘Ibn Suhayd. A biographical and critical study’’, p. 261.
8
R. Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh-and Twelfth-
century Islamic Spain, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 7 (n. 27).
9
There is much more information in the work of Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm (994-1064),
belonging to Ibn Shuhayd’’s circle. For instance, see C. Adang, Islam frente a judaísmo: la
polémica de Ibn Hazm de Córdoba, Diputación Provincial de Córdoba, Area de Cultura, 1994;
M. Asín Palacios, ‘‘La indiferencia religiosa en la España musulmana según Abenhazam,
historiador de las religiones y las sectas’’, Cultura Española 5 (1907), pp. 297-310.
10
For a description of al-Zayyali’’s garden see J. Dickie ‘‘Ibn Suhayd. A biographical……’’, p. 297;
H. Pérès, Esplendor de al-Ándalus. La poesía andaluza en árabe clásico en el siglo XI. Sus aspectos
generales, sus principales temas y su valor documental, transl. M. Garcia-Arenal, Madrid 2nd ed.,
1990, pp. 134-135; M.J. Rubiera Mata, La Arquitectura en la Literatura Árabe, datos para una
estética del placer, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981, p. 82.
11
J. Dickie, ‘‘Ibn Suhayd. A biographical……’’, p. 297.

169
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

to which he must have identified with this place is clear as he chose to be buried
there, next to al-Zayyãlč.
We also know that, in Ibn Shuhaydɹs time, there was a path leading north from
the bãb al-yahŊd up to the Jewish cemetery of Qutah Rasho.12 This path crossed
other Islamic burial sites. One of these sites, known as Umm Salamah is of
particular interest, as this is where al-Zayyãlčɹs garden must have been created.
According to Torres Balbás,13 this cemetery, located just beyond ɸThe Gate of the
Jewsɹ, was one of the largest in Cordoba, if not the largest. This fact places the
events in our poem in a clear funerary context, into which are also integrated
recreational gardens, like Al-Zayyãlčɹs.
Having established the topographical, urban context in which Ibn Shuhayd
specifically set the action, we can question the meaning of the elements used by
the poet in his composition.

Josephɹs Beauty: AbŊ l-ͤasan

The idea of beauty is introduced into the text by the term ͥasan, within the
expression AbŊ l-ͤasan. Pascual de Gayangos, author of the oldest translation we
found of the poem, took the expression as a proper name, thus leaving beauty out
of his version.

‘‘They saw near the gate of the Jews

The star of AbŊ l-ͤasan darken and vanish
When the Jews saw him commanding over the gate
They took him for Joseph’’.14

James Dickie’’s interpretation seems to separate the expression AbŊ l-ͤasan into
the terms aba (to refuse, to reject), and ͥsn (beauty), hence the enigmatic verse,
‘‘(a sun) whose beauty prevented its eclipse’’. In his concise commentary,15 Dickie
simply justifies the mention of Joseph as a ‘‘symbol of masculine beauty’’, referring
to the ΢Ŋrat YŊsuf (Qurɹãn 12). Even though Josephɹs beauty is a significant
element that dates back to Gen 39:6, it is the passage in the Qurɹãn 12:3116–– the
incident of women cutting their hands with knives when they see him entering

12
I. Larrea and E. Hiedra, pp. 327-342.
13
L. Torres Balbás, ‘‘Los cementerios hispanomusulmanes’’, Al-Andalus 22:1 (1957), p. 163.
14
P. de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, p. 207.
15
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, p. 283.
16
For the textual connections between the qurɹãnic account of this episode and the Jewish
midrashic sources, see J.L. Kugel, In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts, New
York: Harper Collins, 1990. pp. 28-65.

170
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

the dining hall –– which turns this quality into Josephɹs most recognizable
characteristic in Arabic literature.
Norman Roth offers a new translation, in which he explains what he considers
a mistake by Gayangos: ‘‘but Gayangosɹ translation of the poem is completely
wrong (e.g., ‘‘AbŊ l-ͤasan’’ here is not a name but an expression for ‘‘outstanding
beauty’’)’’.17

‘‘There appeared a star (boy) in the

Gate of the Jews whose appearance eclipsed all beauty
When the Jews saw him at their gate
They imagine him in his beauty to be Joseph’’.18

In Roth’’s translation, beauty becomes a main concept and is mentioned twice:

first, as a direct translation of the term ͥsn; and second, without foundation in
the last line, in order to reinforce Josephɹs identification with the boy, the object
of praise, according to his interpretation. The connection between Joseph and
beauty becomes key after Roth’’s turn on the meaning of the poem, reducing it to
a merely erotic level. Roth included it in his book Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in
Medieval Spain, within the section about sexual behaviour, in order to illustrate
different sexual deviations, pederasty in particular, which were frequent in the
poetry of the era.19
Both Roth’’s overtly erotic turn on the poem’’s interpretation and the
importance Josephɹs ‘‘qurɹãnic’’ beauty apparently played in it, lead us to consider
that, like Dickie, Roth presumes Ibn Shuhayd, as a Muslim author, used the Qurɹãn
as his intertextual reference; however, since the poem attributes the
identification of Joseph with that sun/star to the Jews (They took him for Joseph/
The Jews imagine him to be Joseph/They imagine him in his beauty to be Joseph), we are
forced to consider the possibility of viewing this identification in a Jewish light,

17
N. Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 10, Leiden;
New York; Köln: Brill, 1994, p.308, n.109.
18
N. Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and muslims in medieval Spain, p. 193.
19
See the chapter entitled ‘‘Sexual Practices and Relations’’, in Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths,
and muslims in medieval Spain, pp. 189-197. On homosexuality in Arabic-Andalusian poetry,
see H. Pérès, Esplendor de al-Ándalus. La poesía andaluza en árabe clásico en el siglo XI. Sus
aspectos generales, sus principales temas y su valor documental, translated by M. Garcia-Arenal,
Madrid 2nd ed., 1990, pp. 344-46. See also M. Francisco Reina, Poesía andalusí, Vol. 298,
Madrid: Editorial Edaf, 2007, pp. 81-87. On homoeroticism en Hebrew poetry see N. Roth,
‘‘Deal Gently with the Young Man: Love of Boys in Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Spain’’,
Speculum 57 (1982), pp. 20-51. On considerations relating to the possible homosexuality of
Ibn Shuhayd see J. Dickie, ‘‘Ibn Suhayd. A biographical……’’, p. 289, and Ibn Shuhayd, Ibn
Xuhaid: Epístola de los genios o árbol del donaire, translated by S. Barberá, Santander: Sur, 1981,
p. 19.

171
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

rather than a qurɹãnic one. Indeed, we can find Josephɹs beauty widely
represented and developed in the corpus of Jewish, post-biblical exegesis;20 even
many of the exegetic motifs appearing in the incident of the women meeting in
the house of Potiphar (Qurɹãn 12:31) are reflected in Jewish midrashic sources.21
In any case, this characterization of Joseph as the prototype of masculine
beauty, together with the sexual temptation he endures in the house of Potiphar,
must have made Joseph the implicit model in Andalusian love poetry. As we
know, this was maintained in an ongoing game of intertextualization with the
Song of Songs, a common, fruitful meeting-point for the two textual worlds co-
existing in al-Andalus: Arabic and Hebrew.22
As Jewish traditional allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs presented
‘‘the loved one’’ as a representation of the people of Israel, it seems inevitable to
think that any reference to Joseph –– desired, aloof, beautiful youth –– will bring to
the minds of both the author and the audience, the idea of the Lover: the God of
Israel. As such, from a Jewish point of view, any allusion to Joseph, including the
romantic genre, would have some Messianic connotation, for, as Georg Bossong
points out, ‘‘Often, complaints about the persecutions and tribulations of the
Jewish people are presented as a maidenɹs lament, abandoned by her lover.
Messianic hopes for immediate salvation are shown by poems singing loveɹs
desire: as the maiden longs for her friendɹs return, so do the people of Israel long
for their redemption by the coming of Godɹs Annointed One.’’23

The Sun, shams

The only translation to include the term ‘‘sun’’ is James Dickieɹs. Gayangosɹ and
Rothɹs represent the image of the heavenly body with the term ‘‘star’’, and, despite
the original manuscript reading shams (ɸsunɹ), as Gayangos points out24, both
authors prefer the alternative reading badr (ɸfull moonɹ). Arabic poetry of the
time commonly used the sun or the moon as a metaphor to describe the beauty of
a young man or woman, a device subsequently adopted by Hebrew poets.25 This
has led Roth to assume that what he translates as a ‘‘star’’ was actually a ‘‘boy’’.

20
J.L. Kugel, pp. 66-94.
21
J.L. Kugel, pp. 28-66.
22
G. Bossong, Poesía en convivencia: estudios sobre la lírica árabe, hebrea y romance en la España de
las tres religiones, Gijón: Ediciones Trea, 2010, p.17.
23
G. Bossong, p. 209.
24
P. de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, p. 487, n. 20.
25
N. Roth, ‘‘Deal Gently with the Young Man’’: Love of Boys in Medieval Hebrew Poetry of
Spain’’, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 57,1 (1982), pp. 20-51, at 27.

172
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

Below are some examples as proof that this device was in no way unknown to
Ibn Shuhayd. In fact, it appears frequently throughout his work:

‘‘Generous youth competing for glory,

Boys like the distant stars whose light would guide us and
those who attacked them would be seared to death.
Amongst them I command
to protect a star with its down in my heart and
in my chest its East’’.26

Another instance:

‘‘May God pour His favours

over those youth whose faces are like lights of
radiant stars’’.27

In his description of a literary gathering (majlis), he refers to its members as:

‘‘Boys as handsome as the stars; sublime poets all ...’’;28 and, in another instance,
referred by al-Musͥafč (al-Dhakhčra), Ibn Shuhayd depicts a certain young man who
visited him once he was already house-bound due to his illness, as ‘‘[...] one who
visited me in the darkness, with a face which cleared its intensest shade.’’29
Considering how frequent this motif is in the poetry of the time, and in Ibn
Shuhaydɹs in particular, we could conclude that the allusion to Joseph, related to
the sun in our poem, was used simply to reinforce praise for the beauty of the
loved one, thus not needing to take the poem further from its initial erotic
interpretation. But, if we look for a specific Jewish viewpoint for this association
between Joseph and the sun, we easily find that certain midrashic developments
in the episode of Josephɹs dream in Genesis 37:9 offer an intrepretation in which
Joseph would have known he was the sun in the dream, the moon being his
mother, and his brothers, all the remaining stars (Bereshit Rabba and Great
Midrash on the Book of Genesis)30. This same identification also appears in some
Arabic commentaries to the ΢Ŋrat YŊsuf, such as al-Bay͍ãwčɹs or al-Zamakhsharčɹs,31

26
T. Garulo Muñoz, La literatura árabe de al-Ándalus durante el siglo XI, Madrid: Hiperión 1998,
p. 99.
27
T. Garulo Muñoz, La literatura árabe de al-Ándalus durante el siglo XI, p. 98.
28
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, 382-426 H= 992-1035 c., Cordoba: Real Academia
de Córdoba. Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 (published 1977), p. 208.
29
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, p. 55.
30
J. Macdonald, ‘‘Joseph in the Qur’’an and Muslim Commentary. A Comparative Study’’, The
Muslim World 46 (1956), pp. 113-131, 207-224.
31
J. Macdonald, ‘‘Joseph in the Qur’’an ……’’, p.117.

173
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

a fact that would provide us with two entry points through which this idea could
have reached the Jews alluded to in the poem and Ibn Shuhayd himself.
Hebrew poetry of the time also contains some examples whose reference to
this solar element has an intentional component, which we could identify as
specifically Jewish due to the messianic connotations given to the sun in some
rabbinical interpretations. This is the case in Dunash ben Labraέ, where we can see
how the Messiah is indirectly related to the sun by means of the name YinnĮn:

‘‘To the prince of his people, our friend.

His name is Yinnon. May he hasten (his arrival)!’’32

No doubt Dunash ben Labrat is echoing the Talmudic interpretation to Ps. 72.1733
in San 98b: ‘‘The School of Rabi Yannai said: His name is Yinnon, for it is written, His
name shall endure for ever: e´er (before) the sun was, his name is Yinnon’’.34

The Eclipse, kasf

Judging by the different interpretations offered by the three translations under

analysis, it is safe to say that the most problematic figure in the poem is that of
the eclipse. For example, Gayangos offers ‘‘star darken and vanish’’; Dickie, ‘‘sun
whose beauty prevented its eclipse’’ and finally we have Roth’’s ‘‘star whose
appearance eclipsed all beauty’’. All three interpretations express different ideas,
some even contradictory (in Dickieɹs version, beauty belongs to the sun and
avoids its eclipse, while in Rothɹs, it is beauty that becomes eclipsed by the star).
So, could a Jewish perspective shed some light on this confusion?
Traditionally, an eclipse signals a bad omen in Judaism. More specifically, a
lunar eclipse is considered a bad augury for Jews, while a solar one will bring
misfortune to the gentiles. Moreover, in the Talmud, we can find Mosesɹ face
identified with the sun (Baba Batra 75a), so a solar eclipse would signify a certain
‘‘spiritual eclipse’’ in the community. This has given rise to the consideration that
the death of a great Rabbi could cause an eclipse of the sun, if he isn’’t duly
honoured35. The application of a contrary logic makes it easy to imagine that the
32
C. del Valle Rodríguez, El diván poético de Dunash ben Labraέ: la introducción de la métrica árabe,
no. 4, Madrid: CSIC, 1988, pp. 190 (n. 107) and 271.
33
Ps 72:17 ‘‘May his name endure forever, his fame continue [yinnon] as long as the sun!’’ ESV;
See D.C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Books of Psalms,
Sheffield: T&T Clark, 1997, p. 31.
34
I. Epstein et al. (eds. and trans), The Babylonian Talmud, London: Soncino Press, 1935. Vol.
24, p. 667.
35
G.W. Dennis. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn
Worldwide Ltd., 2007, p. 76.

174
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

Jews may have thought the best way to avoid an eclipse was to appropriately
honour prominent figures of the community and, as such, metaphorically, we
understand that the brilliant sun defying the eclipse must have been especially
appropriate within Hebrew poetry of praise.
On the other hand, as pointed out by María José Cano36 in her study on the
meɹorĮt found in the Haggada in Barcelona, the antithesis of light-darkness, day-
night, etc. becomes a recurring metaphor in Jewish-Andalusi poetry, used to
illustrate the change from violence to peace that will take place with the arrival
of the Messiah.
This antithesis, analogous to the one between the sun and the eclipse in our
poem, is often built upon references to different biblical passages, for example, in
Is 30.26,37 studied by María José Cano. While Georg Bossong, in his analysis of the
muwashshaͥ by Yehudah ha-Levi to Yosef ben Ferruziel, finds in line 14b:38 ‘‘...and a
light shone’’, a positive adaptation of Job 3.4: ‘‘... nor light shine upon it’’. In line 3,
‘‘wishing to rule in fear of God and so to command over men’’39, Bossong identifies a
reference to King Davidɹs last words in 2Sam 23:3: ɸHe that ruleth over men must be
just, ruling in the fear of Godɹ (KJV). A characterisation of this new ruler to whom
David refers, a Σadčq (ɸrighteous manɹ), would certainly bring to the audience’’s
mind that figure of Joseph, righteous par excellence40 within the Jewish tradition,
establishing herein an association between him and Yosef ben Ferruziel, of the
same name, and onto whom all the characteristics of that Messianic figure David
was waiting for would be projected. This indirect association between Joseph and
the ruler in 2Sam 23.3 enables us to relate Joseph to the continuation of this
passage in 2Sam23.4: ‘‘And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth,
even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear
shining after rainɹ (KJV), which brings us closer to the disposition of elements we
find in our poem.

36
M. José Cano, ‘‘La paz en los poetas clásicos judeo-andalusíes según la aggadá de Barcelona’’,
in J. Targarona Borrás and A. Sáenz-Badillos Pérez (eds.), Poesía hebrea en al-Andalus,
Universidad de Granada, 2003, p. 272.
37
Is 30:26 ‘‘Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be
the sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his
people, and heals the wound inflicted by his blow’’ ESV. Ibid p. 272.
38
G. Bossong, p. 242.
39
G. Bossong, p. 230.
40
For the proximity of the concepts of ‘‘righteous’’ and ‘‘ruler’’ in Jewish-Andalusian poetry,
see E. Hazam, ‘‘Yo preguntaba por el justo, no por el gobernante. El justo como gobernante en la
poesía de Yehudá Ha-Leví’’ en J. Targarona Borrás and A. Sáenz-Badillos Pérez (eds). Poesía
hebrea en al-Andalus, Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2003, pp. 213-224. See also M.S.
Bernstein, ‘‘The Story of our Master Joseph: The Spiritual or the Righteous’’, Judaism and
Islam. Boundaries, Communication and Interaction. Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner. Ed. B.
Hary, J. Hayes and F. Astren, (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies), 2000, vol. 27, p. 157-167.

175
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

A very similar scenario (Joseph, the sun, an eclipse) is found in an event in the
romance The Story of Yusuf, son of YaɺqŊb41 (c.1450-1550), in which the merchant
taking Joseph to Egypt to be sold as a slave, punishes him for having stopped to
mourn upon his mother Rachelɹs grave. At that moment, God sent upon the
caravan a black, dark cloud and strong and fierce wind and many powerful
thunderbolts.42 The merchant quickly realises the storm is a direct consequence of
his punishment of Joseph and hurries to ask for forgiveness: ‘‘[……] Then the
merchant came to Yusuf and kissed his head and his hands and said unto him: I
am the one who did this injustice unto you. Spare me and forgive me.’’ When
Yusuf heard this saying, he said unto him, ‘‘Woe unto you, oh merchant, for I am
of a House which one should not treat this way. Nonetheless, I spare you; may
Allah, be He exalted, spare you.’’ Then Yusuf raised his head toward heaven and
said, ‘‘Lord, persecute not this company for what they have done unto me.’’ And
then the storm and the misfortune left them. And they looked one unto another,
and they travelled with him.’’43
Next, the caravan enters Egypt and sets up camp next to a river in which
Joseph is invited to bathe:

‘‘And Yusuf took off his clothes and bathed in that river. And the fish began to kiss
him on his back and rejoiced with him. When he finished bathing, the earth shone
with his beauty and comeliness, and the gates of heaven were opened, and the
angels of mercy descended upon him, and his face was filled with brightness, and
his face was then like the moon on the night when is full’’.44

The Story of our Master Joseph,45 a Jewish-Arabic manuscript from the 19th century
belonging to the Karaite community in Cairo, tells this very same story, and takes
the identification of Joseph with the sun a step further. Throughout the story,
Joseph is frequently compared to the moon to emphasise his comeliness46, and
upon reproducing this same passage in which Joseph steps out of the river, he is
compared to the moon on the fourteenth eve of the month.47 However, in the

41
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures: The Story of Joseph in Spanish Literature, 1200-1492,
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1997, p. 155.
42
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ...’’, p. 179.
43
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ...’’, p. 179.
44
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ...’’, p. 179.
45
Marc Steven Bernstein, who has studied this manuscript in depth, recognizes in the text
edited by McGaha an obvious precursor. M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph: Narrative
Migrations Between Judaism and Islam, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006, p. 26.
46
‘‘I have a youth whose face is like the moon on the fourteenth night’’ M.S. Bernstein, Stories
of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam, p. 78: ‘‘O Joseph, o Face of the Moon,
God has Glorified You with Blessing……’’, p. 88.
47
M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam, p. 76.

176
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

very next passage, in which the caravan enters Egypt, there is an explanatory
note not present in the Spanish version, which emphasises Joseph’’s identification
with the sun even more:

‘‘And Egypt became like unto the beauty of Joseph, and from his eyes a light
that resembled the Heaven shone upon the women in their houses and
upon the men in their shops. And the world glowed in Josephɹs light to the
point that the people of Egypt were amazed and said, ‘‘this is the light of the
sun and not the light of the moon, for [even] the clouds are revealed’’.48

Joseph as a Prince

As we will see, the subject of the ‘‘sun/star whose glare prevents the eclipse,’’ is
also commonly applied to the prince as benefactor of the community.
James Dickie himself provides the first Arabic parallel in his commentary of
Ibn Shuhaydɹs poem.49 A eulogy to YŊsuf I, King of Granada, it is preserved in the
Alhambra, and again reveals the same elements:

‘‘Yusufɹs face appears before us like a sun,

but is a sun never to go down’’.50

Delving deeper into Hebrew courtly poetry, we see how the allusion to Joseph in
this type of panegyric acquires special connotations. Due to his experience as a
vizier in the court of the Pharaoh and his role as leader of his people during
exile51 in Egypt, Joseph becomes a recurrent model through which to portray
their leaders, especially for Jewish diaspora communities.52

48
M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph, p. 76.
49
J. Dickie (ed. and trans.): El Dčwãn de Ibn ŠŠuhayd al-Andalusč, 382––426 H = 992––1035 c., Córdoba:
Real Academia de Córdoba, Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 [published 1977], p. 283.
50
E. Lafuente y Alcantara, ‘‘Inscripciones árabes de Granada: precedidas de una reseña
histórica y de la genealogía detallada de los reyes Alahmares’’, Madrid: Imprenta Nacional,
1859, p.181. See M.J. Rubiera Mata, Ibn al-ŕayyab, el otro poeta de la Alhambra, Granada:
Patronato de la Alhambra. Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura, 1982, p. 89. See also M.J.
Rubiera Mata, La Arquitectura en la Literatura Árabe; datos para una estética del placer, Madrid:
Editorial Nacional, 1981, p. 153.
51
For an example on the use of Joseph as a model for exile in the poetry of Moses Ben Ezra,
see A. Elinson, Looking Back: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia and the Literary Definition of al-
Andalus in Arabic and Hebrew Literature, New York: Columbia University, 2004, p.112.
52
‘‘On the symbolic level, within Jewish tradition the vicisitudes faced by Joseph have come
to stand as the prototype of the people’’s experience in Exile; while in Islam, the quranic
Joseph, along with Abraham and Moses, served as a model for Muhammad, exemplifying

177
 Enrique Hiedra Rodríguez

Within the genre, explicit references to Joseph have often been used as a way
of alluding to the proper name of the object of praise. This is the case in the
previous example in Arabic, and is very frequent through the use of both direct
and indirect references in the Hebrew medium. Sometimes, the onomastic
coincidence allows the poet to establish a direct identification of the praised one
with the biblical Joseph. For example, a poem dedicated by YiΣͥãq ben KhalfĮn
(960-1030) to Joseph ben Jacob, naĺč of Egypt, referred to him in the following
terms:

‘‘Generous hearted, open-handed, Godɹs chosen, a man of culture who

knows its ways.
This is Joseph the son of Jacob who, like (the biblical) Joseph, son of
Jacob, is his Crown. [And] lo! I too am like Jacob in grieving over one as
beautiful as Joseph’’.53

However, in most cases the figure of Joseph is evoked indirectly, referring to

biblical passages that would not be originally related, explicitly, to the figure of
Joseph. A clear example can be found in the poem ‘‘Naguidɹs Son’’, credited to
YiΣͥãq ben KhalfĮn 54, where we find the allusion to Joseph made through the
blessing Jacob gives him in Gen 49:22, Ben Porat (ɸfruitful boughɹ):

‘‘Magnificent figure inherited from the father.

Fruitful (Ben Porat) [by a fountain]’’55

Several lines later, the description of the Naguidɹs son continues:

‘‘With his bright face

Everyman he delivers from fear and misfortune
A just man, pure at heart’’ (Psal 24:4)

This relationship between the name Joseph (Ben Porat) and the sun, whose glare
protects the community, appears once again in the muwashsha‫ ۊ‬that Yehudah ha-
Lewi dedicates to Yosef ben Ferruziel, aka Cidiello:

for him the difficulties the Arabian prophet had to overcome in gaining acceptance for his
mission’’, M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam, p. 2.
53
A. Brener, Isaac Ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century, vol. 4, Leiden:
Brill, 2003, p. 139.
54
On the authorship, see C. del Valle Rodríguez, Isaac ben Jalfon de Córdoba, Poemas, edición
castellana íntegra, anotada y comentada del diván de Ibn Jalfón [ca. 960-1030], Madrid: Aben Ezra
Ediciones, 1992, p. 175.
55
C. del Valle Rodríguez, Isaac ben Jalfon de Córdoba, p. 176.

178
 Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph

‘‘Fruitful sprout (Ben Porat), by the strength of your bow

Your deeds are useful.
Kindness of the days, does it not come from you?
It is for you they renewed the song.
You the sun and the spilled rain,
Both you outclass.
It is for you they built eternal lights,
And a light shimmered.
Over the land, and it also proves itɹs protected by you’’.56

The identification between the sun and the praised one is ultimately defined in
the closing kharjah of this muwashshaͥ:

‘‘From the moment my lord (Cidello) comes

what glad tidings!
Like a ray of sunlight
He rises in Guadalajara.’’57

Conclusion

Since this is a poem written in Arabic by a Muslim author, critics who have
analysed the poem up to now have done so using the general requisites
concerning Arabic poetry of the time, which to a large extent, were shared with
Hebrew poetry. However, they can often overlook some nuances that wouldn’’t
have gone unnoticed by the audience at the time. As such, we have seen that a
merely erotic interpretation of Joseph’’s identification with the sun would be
plausible in both the Hebrew and Arabic tradition. But, if we accept it is a
panegyrical poem, dedicated to some sort of prince or benefactor to the Jewish
community, both the figure of Joseph in his identification with the sun and his
link to the eclipse, immediately take on Messianic connotations, taking the poem
to a whole new interpretative setting. Given that the figure of Joseph may have,
in some aspects, a different sense for Jews and Muslims, perhaps we should
understand the fact that Ibn Shuhayd himself specifically states that it is them
(the Jews) who raised a sun at the gate of the Jews and who, seeing him as a
prince at their gate, imagine him to be Joseph; it might be a way of placing the
interpretation of the poem in the exact setting in which the Joseph of the Jews is
different from the Joseph of the Muslims.

56
G. Bossong, p. 231.
57
L. Spitzer, ‘‘The Mozarabic Lyric and the Theodor Frings’’ Theories’’, Comparative Literature
IV: 1 (1952), p. 8.

179