Judah Al-Ḥarīzī's Account of His Visit to the Jewish Communities Of

Home , Solomon ibn Gabirol

Chapter 22 An Andalusi Poet in the Land of the Pharaohs: Judah al-Ḥarīzī’s Account of His Visit to the Jewish Communities of Egypt (circa 1216)

Paul B. Fenton

Judah b. Solomon al-Ḥarīzī spent his formative years in Toledo, the city in which he was probably born around 1165. At that time, this city was still a bas- tion of Arabic culture despite over three generations of Christian rule.1 Thus al-Ḥarīzī received a thorough education in both the Hebrew and Arabic tradi- tions to the point where he was able to excel in the writing of Arabic poetry.2 Born to a wealthy family, subsequently impoverished, al-Ḥarīzī had to fall back on his artistic gifts, relying upon patrons for his livelihood. Unfortunately, times were changing in Christian Spain where the wellsprings of generous Maecenas had dried up. Hebrew poetry and the passion for it had consider- ably declined since Judah ha-Levi (d. 1141) had brought both to an apex. This decline was not altogether without cause: whilst there were many poets in al-Ḥarīzī’s day, many were of an inferior rank; hence a certain disenchantment set in on the part of the former enthusiasts of Hebrew literature. Appreciation of his particular type of poetic talent, especially in Arabic, was on the wane, as al-Ḥarīzī himself stated, ironically, in poetry:

The fathers of song, Solomon, and Judah, And Moses besides — all shone in the west,3 And rich men were rife then Who purchased the pearls of their art;

1 J. P. Molenat, “L’arabe à Tolède du XIIe au XVIe siècle,” Al-Qantara 15 (1994), 473–96. 2 See Y. Ratzaby, “Arabic poetry written by the Jews of al-Andalus,” in Israel Levin Jubilee Volume, eds. R. Zur and T. Rosen (Tel Aviv: , 1994), 329–50 (in Hebrew). So exquisite was al-Ḥarīzī’s Arabic poetry that the Muslim author Ibn Shaʿar al-Mawṣilī (1197–1256) deemed him worthy of a mention in his biographical work Qalāʾid al-Jummān fī farāʾid shuʿarāʾ hādha al-zamān, and refers in particular to his al-Rawḍa al-anīqa. See J. Sadan, “Un intellectuel juif au conflu- ent de deux cultures: Yehūda al-Ḥarīzī et sa biographie arabe,” in: M. Fierro (ed.), Judios y musulmanes en al-Andalus y el Magreb, Madrid, 2002, 105–51. 3 Al-Ḥarīzī alludes to Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Judah ha-Levi and Moses Ibn Ezra, who flourished in Muslim Spain.

How sad is my lot now times are so changed! The rich men have gone, and their glory hath set! The fathers found fountains — For me ne’er a fountain will start!4

Towards the last quarter of the twelfth century, al-Ḥarīzī decided to leave his Iberian homeland in search of fresh benefactors. His quest first brought him to Lunel in Provence where he was approached to translate several classics of Judaeo-Arabic literature into Hebrew. Our master of witty poetry proved also to have had a solid understanding and appreciation of legal and philosophical works. As a fervent admirer of Maimonides, he made a Hebrew translation of his Guide for the Perplexed, which was to have a wide impact even beyond Jewish circles.5 In addition, he translated into Hebrew part of Maimonides’ Arabic Commentary on the Mishnah,6 as well as his Epistle on Resurrection, based on a manuscript, which he had directly requested from Egypt through the good offices of Abraham Maimonides.7 An old chronicle appended to Solomon Ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah relates that around 1211, shortly before al-Ḥarīzī’s journey eastwards, a large group of some 300 learned rabbis from England and France emigrated to the Holy Land, travelling through Egypt, where some of their number were subsequently ap- pointed as rabbis, judges and community worthies.8 News of their felicitous attainments may possibly have encouraged Judah al-Ḥarīzī to again take up the staff of the wandering bard in order to ply his artistic and poetic abilities in

4 Taḥkemoni or Tales of Heman the Ezraḥite by Judah Alharizi, edited with an introduction, commentary, and indices by Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata, Gate Fifty, 584, ll. 1147– 54 [Hebrew; English translation: Judah Alharīzī, The Book of Tahkemoni, Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain, trans. D. S. Segal (London, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), 180]. We have retained the traditional chapter numbers of the Taḥkemoni, which differ in the Yahalom-Katsumata edition. 5 Maimonides, Mōreh Nebūkīm, ed. L. Schlossberg (London: Bagster, 1851). See also R. Scheindlin, “Al-Ḥarizi’s Translation of the Guide of the Perplexed in Its Cultural Moment,” in Maimonides' "Guide for the Perplexed" in Translation: A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth, edited by J. Stern, J. T. Robinson and Y. Shamash (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2019), 55–79. 6 He translated Maimonides’ Introduction to his commentary on chapter 10 of the Mishnah Sanhedrin and the first five treatises of his commentary on the order Zeraʿim. 7 See D. Baneth, “Judah Al-Ḥarīzī and the Three Translations,” Tarbiz 11 (1940), 260–70 (in Heb.), and A. S. Halkin, “Maimonides’ Treatise on Resurrection in Judah Al-Harizi’s Translation,” Qōvēṣ ʿāl Yad 9 (1980), 129–50 [in Hebrew]. 8 See Solomon Ibn Verga, Sefer Shevet Yehudah, ed. Shochat, Jerusalem, 1957, 147; E. Kanarfogel, “The Aliyah of ‘Three Hundred Rabbis’ in 1211: Tosafist Attitudes toward Settling in the Land of Israel,” JQR 76 (1986), 191–215.