THE QARAITES AND MEDIAEVAL SCHOLARSHIP In the Geonic period there came into prominence the sect of the Qaraites (Beni miqrd, "followers of the Scripture," the Pro testants of Judaism) who rejected rabbinical authority, basing their doctrine and practice exclusively on the Bible. The sect was founded by 'Arian in the 8th century, and, after many vicis situdes, still exists. Their literature is largely polemical and to a great extent deals with grammar and exegesis. Of their first im portant authors, Benjamin al-Nehawendi and Daniel al-Qumisi (both in the 9th century), little is preserved. In the loth century Jacob al-Qirqisani wrote his Kitab al-anwar, on law, Solomon ben Yeruham (against Seadiah) and Yefet ben `Ali wrote exegetical works; in the 11 th century Abu'l-f ara j Furqan, exegesis, and Yusuf al-Basir against Samuel ben Hophni. Most of these wrote in Arabic. In the i 2th century and in S. Europe, Judah Hadassi composed his Eshkol ha-Kopher, a great theological compendium in the form of a commentary on the Decalogue. Other writers are Aaron (the elder) ben Joseph, i3th century, who wrote the com mentary Sepher ha-mibhhar; Aaron (the younger) of Nicomedia (14th century), author of 'Ez Hayyim, on philosophy, Gan `Eden, on law, and the commentary Kether Torah; in the 15th century Elijah Bashyazi, on law (Addereth Eliyahu), and Caleb Efen dipoulo, poet and theologian; in the i6th century Moses Bashyazi, theologian. From the 12th century onward the sect gradually declined, being ultimately restricted mainly to the Crimea and Lithuania, learning disappeared and their literature became merely popular and of little interest. Much of it in later times was writ ten in a curious Tatar dialect. Mention need only be made further of Isaac of Troki, whose anti-Christian polemic Hizzuq Emunah was translated into English by Moses Mocatta under the title of Faith Strengthened (1851) ; Solomon of Troki, whose Appiryon, an account of Qaraism, was written at the request of Pufendorf (about 1700) ; and Abraham Firkovich, who, in spite of his impostures, did much for the literature of his people about the middle of the 19th century. (See also QARAITES.) To return to the period of the Geonim. While the schools of Babylonia were flourishing as the religious head of Judaism, the West, and especially Spain under Moorish rule, was becom ing the home of Jewish scholarship. On the breaking up of the schools many of the fugitives fled to the West and helped to promote rabbinical learning there. The communities of Fez, Kairawan and N. Africa were in close relation with those of Spain, and as early as the beginning of the 9th century Judah ben Quraish of Tahort had composed his Risalah (letter) to the Jews of Fez on grammatical subjects from a comparative point of view, and a dictionary now lost. His work was used in the loth century by Menahem ben Saruq, of Cordova, in his Mahbereth (diction ary). Menahem's system of hi-literal and uni-literal roots was violently attacked by Dunash ibn Labrat, and as violently de fended by the author's pupils. Among these was Judah Hayyuj of Cordova, the father of modern Hebrew grammar, who first established the principle of tri-literal roots. His system was adopted by Abu'l-walid ibn Jannab, of Saragossa (died early in the IIth century), in his lexicon (Kitdb al-usicl, in Arabic) and other works. In Italy appeared the invaluable Talmud-lexicon (`Arfikh) by Nathan b. Yehiel, of Rome (d. 1106), who was in directly indebted to Babylonian teaching. He does not strictly follow the system of Hayyuj. Other works of a different kind also originated in Italy about this time : the very popular history of the Jews, called Josippon (probably of the loth or even 9th century), ascribed to Joseph ben Gorion (Gorionides) ; two different texts of it exist: (1) in the ed. pr. (Mantua, 1476) ; ed. by Seb. Munster (Basel, 1541) ; there is also an early Arabic recension, but its relation to the Hebrew and to the Arabic 2 Maccabees is still obscure; see J.Q.R., xi. 355 sqq. The Hebrew text was edited with a Latin translation by Breithaupt (Gotha, 1707) ; the medical treatises of Shabbethai Donnolo (loth cen tury) and his commentary on the Sepher Yezirah, the anonymous and earliest Hebrew kabbalistic work ascribed to the patriarch Abraham. In North Africa, probably in the 9th century, ap peared the book known under the name of Eldad ha-Dani, giving an account of the ten tribes, from which much mediaeval legend was derived; on the various recensions of the text see D. H. Muller in the Denkschriften of the Vienna Academy Cl., xli. I, p. 41) and Epstein's ed. (Pressburg, 1891) ; in K.aira wan the medical and philosophical treatises of Isaac Israeli, who died in 932.
Exegesis.—The aim of the grammatical studies of the Spanish school was ultimately exegesis. This had already been cultivated in the East. In the 9th century Hivi of Balkh wrote a rationalistic treatise on difficulties in the Bible, which was refuted by Seadiah. A fragment of such a work, probably emanating from the school of Hivi was found by Schechter and published in J.Q.R., xiii. 345 sqq. A fragment of Seadiah's polemic against Hivi was edited with an English translation, introduction and notes by Israel Davidson (New York, 1915) . The commentaries of the Geonim have been mentioned above. The impulse to similar work in the West came also from Babylonia. In the loth century Hushiel, one of four prisoners, perhaps from Babylonia, though that is doubtful, was ransomed and settled at Kairawan, where he acquired great reputation as a Talmudist. His son Hananeel (d. wrote a commentary on (probably all) the Talmud, and one now lost on the Pentateuch. Hananeel's contemporary Nissim ben Jacob, of Kairawan, who corresponded with Hai Gaon of Pumbeditha as well as with Samuel the Nagid in Spain, likewise wrote on the Talmud, and is probably the author of a collection of Ma`asiyyoth or edifying stories, besides works now lost. The activity in North Africa reacted on Spain. There the most promi nent figure was that of Samuel ibn Nagdela (or Nagrela), gener ally known as Samuel the Nagid or head of the Jewish settle ment, who died in 1055. As vizier to the Moorish king at Granada, he was not only a patron of learning, but himself a man of wide knowledge and a considerable author. Some of his poems and an Introduction to the Talmud are extant. In gram mar he followed Hayyuj, whose pupil he was. Among others he was the patron of Solomon ibn Gabirol (q.v.), the poet and philo sopher. To this period belong Hafz al-Quti (the Goth?) who made a version of the Psalms in Arabic rhyme, and Bahya (more cor rectly Behai) ibn Paquda, dayyan at Saragossa, whose Arabic ethical treatise has always had great popularity among the Jews in its Hebrew translation, Hobhoth ha-lebhabhoth. He also com posed liturgical poems. At the end of the 1 1 th century Judah ibn Bal'am wrote grammatical works and commentaries (on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, etc.) in Arabic; the liturgist Isaac Gayyath (d. in 1089 at Cordova) wrote on ritual. Moses Giqatilla (11th century), grammarian and exegetist, was the first to suggest that the second half of the Book of Isaiah was the work of a prophet near the end of the Babylonian exile.
Rashi.—The French school of the 1 1 th century was hardly less important. Gershom ben Judah, the "Light of the Exile" (d. in 104o at Mainz), a famous Talmudist and commentator, his pupil, Jacob hen Yaqar, and Moses ha-Darshan of Narbonne, were the forerunners of the greatest of all Jewish commentators, Solomon hen Isaac (Rashi), who died at Troyes in r io5. Rashi was a pupil of Jacob hen Yaqar, and studied at Worms and Mainz. Unlike his contemporaries in Spain, he seems to have confined himself wholly to Jewish learning, and to have known nothing of Arabic or other languages except his native French. Yet no commentator is more valuable or indeed more voluminous, and for the study of the Talmud he is indispensable. He com mented on all the Bible and on nearly all the Talmud, has been himself the text of several super-commentaries, and has exerted much influence on Christian exegesis. Closely connected with Rashi, or of his school, are Joseph Qara, of Troyes (d. about the commentator, and his teacher Menahem ben HelbO, Jacob ben Me'ir, called Rabbenu Tam (d. 1171), the im portant of the Tosaphists (v. sup.), and later in the 12th century the liberal and rationalizing Joseph Bekhor Shor, and Samuel ben Me'ir (d. about 1174) of Ramerupt, commentator and Talmudist.
In the 12th and 13th centuries literature maintained a high level in Spain. Abraham bar Hiyya, known to Christian scholars as Abraham Judaeus (d. about 1136), was a mathematician, astronomer and philosopher much studied in the middle ages.
Moses ibn Ezra, of Granada (d. about 1140), wrote in Arabic a philosophical work based on Greek and Arabic as well as Jewish authorities, known by the name of the Hebrew translation as `Ariigath ha-bosem, and the Kitab al-Mahadarah, of great value for literary history. He is even better known as a poet, for his Diwan and the `Anaq, and as a hymn-writer. His relative, Abraham ibn Ezra, was still more distinguished. He was born at Toledo, spent most of his life in travel, wandering even to England and to the East, and died in 1167. Yet he contrived to write his great commentary on the Pentateuch and other books of the Bible, treatises on philosophy (as the Yesodh mora), as tronomy, mathematics, grammar (translation of Hayyuj ), be sides a Diwan. The man, however, who shares with Ibn Gabirol the first place in Jewish poetry is Judah Ha-levi, of Toledo, who died in Jerusalem about 1140. His poems, both secular and religious, contained in his Diwan and scattered in the liturgy, are all in Hebrew, though he employed Arabic metres. In Arabic he wrote his philosophical work, called in the Hebrew translation Sepher ha-Kuzari, a defence of revelation as against non-Jewish philosophy and Qaraite doctrine. It shows considerable knowl edge of Greek and Arabic thought (Avicenna). Joseph ibn Migash (d. 1141 at Lucena), a friend of Judah Ha-levi and of Moses ibn Ezra, wrote Responsa and novelae on parts of the Talmud. In another sphere mention must be made of the travel lers Benjamin of Tudela (d. after 1173), whose Massa`oth are of great value for the history and geography of his time, and (though not belonging to Spain) Pethahiah of Regensburg (d. about 119o), who wrote short notes of his journeys. Abraham ben David, of Toledo (d. about 118o), in philosophy an Aristotelian (through Avicenna) and the precursor of Maimonides, is known for his Sepher ha-qabbalah, a polemic against Karaism, but valuable for the history of tradition and for his Emunah Ramah, a philosophical work.
A very different person was Moses ben Nahman (Ramban) or Nahmanides (b. at Gerona 1194, d. in Palestine about 127o), who was as conservative as Maimonides was liberal. Much of his life was spent in controversy, not only with Christians (in before the king of Aragon) , but also with his own people and on the views of the time. His greatest work is the commentary on the Pentateuch in opposition to Maimonides and Ibn Ezra. He had a strong inclination to mysticism, but whether certain kabbalistic works are rightly attributed to him is doubtful. It is, however, not a mere coincidence that the two great kabbalistic textbooks, the Bahir and the Zohar (both meaning "brightness"), appear first in the 13th century. If not due to his teaching they are at least in sympathy with it. The Bahir, a sort of outline of the Zohar, and traditionally ascribed to Nehunya (1st century) ; is believed by some to be the work of Isaac the Blind ben Abraham of Posquieres (d. early in the 13th century), the founder of the modern Kabbalah and the author of the names for the io Sephiroth. The Zohar, supposed to be by Simeon ben Yohai (2nd century), is now generally attributed to Moses of Leon (d. 1305), who, however, drew his material in part from earlier written or traditional sources, such as the Sepher Yezirah. At any rate the work was immediately accepted by the Kabbalists, and has formed the basis of all subsequent study of the subject. Put into the form of a commentary on the Pentateuch, it is really an exposition of the kabbalistic view of the universe show ing considerable acquaintance with the natural science of the time. A pupil, though not a follower of Nahmanides, was Solo mon ibn Adreth (not Addereth), of Barcelona (d. 131o), a prolific writer of Talmudic and and polemical works (against the Kabba lists and Mohammedans) as well as of responsa. He was opposed by Abraham Abulafia (d. about 1291) and his pupil Joseph Giqatilla (d. about 1305), the author of numerous kabbalistic works. Solomon's pupil Bahya ben Asher, of Saragossa (d. 1340) was the author of a very popular commentary on the Pentateuch and of religious discourses entitled Kad ha-qemah, in both of which, unlike his teacher, he made large use of the Kabbalah. Other studies, however, were not neglected. In the first half of the 13th century, Abraham ibn Hasdai, a vigorous supporter of Maimonides, translated (or adapted) a large number of philo sophical works from Arabic, among them being the Sepher ha tappuah, based on Aristotle's de Anima, and the Mozene Zedeq of Ghazzali on moral philosophy, of both of which the originals are lost. Another Maimonist was Shem Tobh ben Joseph Fala quera (d. after 129o), philosopher (following Averroes), poet and author of a commentary on the Moreh.
A curious mixture of mysticism and Aristotelianism is seen in Isaac Aboab (about 1300), whose Menorath ha-Ma'or, a collec tion of agadoth, attained great popularity and has been frequently printed and translated. Somewhat earlier in the 13th century lived Judah al-Harizi, who belongs in spirit to the time of Ibn Gabirol and Judah ha-levi. He wrote numerous translations of Galen, Aristotle, Hariri, Hunain ben Isaac and Maimonides, as well as several original works, a Sepher 'Anaq in imitation of Moses ben Ezra, and treatises on grammar and medicine (Rephu ath geviyyah), but he is best known for his Taitkemoni, a diwan in the style of Hariri's Maqamat.