Mapping Knowledge

Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Edited by
Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-Espaa

CNERU The Warburg Institute

__________________________________
Oriens Academic

CNERU The Warburg Institute

Series Arabica Veritas
1

Chief Editors
Charles Burnett Pedro Mantas-Espaa

Advisory Board
Alexander Fidora Dag Nikolaus Hasse Jos Meirinhos
David Nirenberg Rafael Ramn Guerrero

Mapping Knowledge
Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Edited by
Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-Espaa

Arabica Veritas: Mapping Knowledge: Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle
Ages. Edited by Charles Burnett & Pedro Mantas-Espaa. 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

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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 SUREZ-LLANOS, Jess

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

MARTNEZ 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 Mwiya, and
Christian Arab groups on the Eastern frontier during the 3rd4th
centuries CE .......................................................................................... 71
QUIROGA PUERTAS, Alberto J.
Philostratean Bishops and the Rhetoric of the Empire ................................ 99
SOTO CHICA, Jos and GARCA AMORS, Maila
LAmbassade de Zemarque de Cilicie. De Constantinople aux
frontires de Chine ............................................................................... 109
TORALLAS TOVAR, Sofa.
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 Crdoba 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 Marts Pugio fidei ........................................ 153
HIEDRA RODRGUEZ, Enrique
Ibn Shuhayd on Joseph. A Muslim Poet at the Gate of the Jews ................... 167
LZARO PULIDO, Manuel
Le transfert de la connaissance dans le Regnum Suevorum. St. Martin
de Dume (sc. VI) ................................................................................ 181
MANTAS-ESPAA, 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 ammdid Art. Some Preliminary
Observations ........................................................................................ 209
MEIRINHOS, Jos
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
RAMN-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 Rodrguez
University of Crdoba
At The Gate of the Jews
The poem by Ab mir Ibn Shuhayd (992-1035),1 entitled al bb al-yahd (At the
Gate of the Jews) by its editor James Dickie, is a distich, presumably a passage
from a larger panegyric. Its preservation is thanks to Qalid al-iqyn by al-Fat b.
Khqn, and al-Naf al-ibb by al-Maqqar, in which it is mentioned twice; one
instance taken from al-Qalid 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 Dickies:
At the Jews 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 bb al-yahd.
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-Maqqar includes it in a chapter about the description of Cordoba, specifically
in a segment referring to its gates, as proof of Cordobas North Gate having once
had the name bb al-yahd.4 This reference has led several authors to question
whether this toponym may have been related to a possible Jewish settlement of
1

3
4

For Ibn Shuhayds biography see J. Dickie, Ibn Shuhayd. A biographical and critical study,
Al-Andalus 29:2 (1964), pp. 243-310.
J. Dickie (ed. and trans.), El Dwn de Ibn uhayd al-Andalus, 382426 H = 9921035 c., Crdoba:
Real Academia de Crdoba, Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 [published 1977], p. 283.
J. Dickie, Ibn Suhayd. A biographical and critical study, Al-Andalus 29:2 (1964), p. 294.
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 Rodrguez

the time in the northern area of the city.5 The discovery of the ninth century
Hebrew gravestone of Yehudah Bar Akn6 in the area identified by Ibn Bashkuwl
in his work Kitb 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 Crdoba by Levi-Provenal

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 Shuhayds 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 lpida hebrea de poca emiral del
Zumbacn. Apuntes sobre arqueologa funeraria juda en Crdoba, Anales de la arqueologa
cordobesa 2 (2009-10), pp. 327-342.
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 poems 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 Ab l-Qsim al- Ifll,
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 Bassms alDhakhra (1:233), we find a reference by Ibn Shuhayd himself to a Jew named Joseph
Ibn Isq al-Isrl, 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 bb alyahd and the activities that took place there. In the vicinity of the bb al-yahd,
stood the hir (garden) of his good friend al-Zayyl,10 where, as gathered by Ibn
Khqn in Qalid, 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
8

10

11

J. Dickie, Ibn Suhayd. A biographical and critical study, p. 261.

R. Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh-and Twelfthcentury Islamic Spain, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 7 (n. 27).
There is much more information in the work of Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm (994-1064),
belonging to Ibn Shuhayds circle. For instance, see C. Adang, Islam frente a judasmo: la
polmica de Ibn Hazm de Crdoba, Diputacin Provincial de Crdoba, Area de Cultura, 1994;
M. Asn Palacios, La indiferencia religiosa en la Espaa musulmana segn Abenhazam,
historiador de las religiones y las sectas, Cultura Espaola 5 (1907), pp. 297-310.
For a description of al-Zayyalis garden see J. Dickie Ibn Suhayd. A biographical, p. 297;
H. Prs, Esplendor de al-ndalus. La poesa andaluza en rabe clsico 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 rabe, datos para una
esttica del placer, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981, p. 82.
J. Dickie, Ibn Suhayd. A biographical, p. 297.

169

Enrique Hiedra Rodrguez

to which he must have identified with this place is clear as he chose to be buried
there, next to al-Zayyl.
We also know that, in Ibn Shuhayds time, there was a path leading north from
the bb al-yahd 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-Zayyls garden must have been created.
According to Torres Balbs,13 this cemetery, located just beyond The Gate of the
Jews, 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-Zayyls.
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.
Josephs Beauty: Ab l-asan
The idea of beauty is introduced into the text by the term asan, within the
expression Ab 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 Ab l-asan darken and vanish
When the Jews saw him commanding over the gate
They took him for Joseph.14

James Dickies interpretation seems to separate the expression Ab 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 rat Ysuf (Qurn 12). Even though Josephs beauty is a significant
element that dates back to Gen 39:6, it is the passage in the Qurn 12:3116 the
incident of women cutting their hands with knives when they see him entering
12
13
14
15
16

I. Larrea and E. Hiedra, pp. 327-342.

L. Torres Balbs, Los cementerios hispanomusulmanes, Al-Andalus 22:1 (1957), p. 163.
P. de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, p. 207.
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, p. 283.
For the textual connections between the qurnic 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 Josephs most recognizable
characteristic in Arabic literature.
Norman Roth offers a new translation, in which he explains what he considers
a mistake by Gayangos: but Gayangos translation of the poem is completely
wrong (e.g., Ab 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 Roths 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 Josephs identification with the boy, the object
of praise, according to his interpretation. The connection between Joseph and
beauty becomes key after Roths 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 Roths overtly erotic turn on the poems interpretation and the
importance Josephs qurnic beauty apparently played in it, lead us to consider
that, like Dickie, Roth presumes Ibn Shuhayd, as a Muslim author, used the Qurn
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

18
19

N. Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 10, Leiden;
New York; Kln: Brill, 1994, p.308, n.109.
N. Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and muslims in medieval Spain, p. 193.
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. Prs, Esplendor de al-ndalus. La poesa andaluza en rabe clsico 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, Poesa andalus, 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: Epstola de los genios o rbol del donaire, translated by S. Barber, Santander: Sur, 1981,
p. 19.

171

Enrique Hiedra Rodrguez

rather than a qurnic one. Indeed, we can find Josephs 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 (Qurn 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 coexisting 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 maidens lament, abandoned by her lover.
Messianic hopes for immediate salvation are shown by poems singing loves
desire: as the maiden longs for her friends return, so do the people of Israel long
for their redemption by the coming of Gods Annointed One.23
The Sun, shams
The only translation to include the term sun is James Dickies. Gayangos and
Roths represent the image of the heavenly body with the term star, and, despite
the original manuscript reading shams (sun), as Gayangos points out24, both
authors prefer the alternative reading badr (full moon). 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
21
22

23
24
25

J.L. Kugel, pp. 66-94.

J.L. Kugel, pp. 28-66.
G. Bossong, Poesa en convivencia: estudios sobre la lrica rabe, hebrea y romance en la Espaa de
las tres religiones, Gijn: Ediciones Trea, 2010, p.17.
G. Bossong, p. 209.
P. de Gayangos, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, p. 487, n. 20.
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-Musaf (al-Dhakhra), 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
Shuhayds 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 Josephs 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 rat Ysuf, such as al-Bayws or al-Zamakhshars,31

26

27
28

29
30

31

T. Garulo Muoz, La literatura rabe de al-ndalus durante el siglo XI, Madrid: Hiperin 1998,
p. 99.
T. Garulo Muoz, La literatura rabe de al-ndalus durante el siglo XI, p. 98.
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, 382-426 H= 992-1035 c., Cordoba: Real Academia
de Crdoba. Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 (published 1977), p. 208.
J. Dickie, El Diwan de Ibn Shuhayd al-Andalusi, p. 55.
J. Macdonald, Joseph in the Quran and Muslim Commentary. A Comparative Study, The
Muslim World 46 (1956), pp. 113-131, 207-224.
J. Macdonald, Joseph in the Quran , p.117.

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Enrique Hiedra Rodrguez

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 Labra, where we can see
how the Messiah is indirectly related to the sun by means of the name Yinnn:
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: eer (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 Roths star whose
appearance eclipsed all beauty. All three interpretations express different ideas,
some even contradictory (in Dickies version, beauty belongs to the sun and
avoids its eclipse, while in Roths, 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 Moses 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 isnt duly
honoured35. The application of a contrary logic makes it easy to imagine that the
32

33

34

35

C. del Valle Rodrguez, El divn potico de Dunash ben Labra: la introduccin de la mtrica rabe,
no. 4, Madrid: CSIC, 1988, pp. 190 (n. 107) and 271.
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.
I. Epstein et al. (eds. and trans), The Babylonian Talmud, London: Soncino Press, 1935. Vol.
24, p. 667.
G.W. Dennis. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn
Worldwide Ltd., 2007, p. 76.

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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 Mara Jos Cano36 in her study on the
meort found in the Haggada in Barcelona, the antithesis of light-darkness, daynight, 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 Mara Jos Cano. While Georg Bossong, in his analysis of the
muwashsha 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 Davids last words in 2Sam 23:3: He that ruleth over men must be
just, ruling in the fear of God (KJV). A characterisation of this new ruler to whom
David refers, a adq (righteous man), would certainly bring to the audiences
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 rain (KJV), which brings us closer to the disposition of elements we
find in our poem.
36

37

38
39
40

M. Jos Cano, La paz en los poetas clsicos judeo-andaluses segn la aggad de Barcelona,
in J. Targarona Borrs and A. Senz-Badillos Prez (eds.), Poesa hebrea en al-Andalus,
Universidad de Granada, 2003, p. 272.
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.
G. Bossong, p. 242.
G. Bossong, p. 230.
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
poesa de Yehud Ha-Lev en J. Targarona Borrs and A. Senz-Badillos Prez (eds). Poesa
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 Rodrguez

A very similar scenario (Joseph, the sun, an eclipse) is found in an event in the
romance The Story of Yusuf, son of Yaqb41 (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 Rachels 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

42
43
44
45

46

47

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.
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ..., p. 179.
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ..., p. 179.
M.D. McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures ..., p. 179.
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.
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.
M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam, p. 76.

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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 Josephs 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 Josephs 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 Shuhayds poem.49 A eulogy to Ysuf I, King of Granada, it is preserved in the
Alhambra, and again reveals the same elements:
Yusufs 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
49

50

51

52

M.S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph, p. 76.

J. Dickie (ed. and trans.): El Dwn de Ibn uhayd al-Andalus, 382426 H = 9921035 c., Crdoba:
Real Academia de Crdoba, Instituto de Estudios Califales, 1975 [published 1977], p. 283.
E. Lafuente y Alcantara, Inscripciones rabes de Granada: precedidas de una resea
histrica y de la genealoga detallada de los reyes Alahmares, Madrid: Imprenta Nacional,
1859, p.181. See M.J. Rubiera Mata, Ibn al-ayyab, el otro poeta de la Alhambra, Granada:
Patronato de la Alhambra. Instituto Hispano-rabe de Cultura, 1982, p. 89. See also M.J.
Rubiera Mata, La Arquitectura en la Literatura rabe; datos para una esttica del placer, Madrid:
Editorial Nacional, 1981, p. 153.
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 alAndalus in Arabic and Hebrew Literature, New York: Columbia University, 2004, p.112.
On the symbolic level, within Jewish tradition the vicisitudes faced by Joseph have come
to stand as the prototype of the peoples experience in Exile; while in Islam, the quranic
Joseph, along with Abraham and Moses, served as a model for Muhammad, exemplifying

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Enrique Hiedra Rodrguez

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 Yiq ben Khalfn
(960-1030) to Joseph ben Jacob, na of Egypt, referred to him in the following
terms:
Generous hearted, open-handed, Gods 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 Naguids Son, credited to
Yiq ben Khalfn 54, where we find the allusion to Joseph made through the
blessing Jacob gives him in Gen 49:22, Ben Porat (fruitful bough):
Magnificent figure inherited from the father.
Fruitful (Ben Porat) [by a fountain]55

Several lines later, the description of the Naguids 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 that Yehudah haLewi dedicates to Yosef ben Ferruziel, aka Cidiello:

53

54

55

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.
A. Brener, Isaac Ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century, vol. 4, Leiden:
Brill, 2003, p. 139.
On the authorship, see C. del Valle Rodrguez, Isaac ben Jalfon de Crdoba, Poemas, edicin
castellana ntegra, anotada y comentada del divn de Ibn Jalfn [ca. 960-1030], Madrid: Aben Ezra
Ediciones, 1992, p. 175.
C. del Valle Rodrguez, Isaac ben Jalfon de Crdoba, p. 176.

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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 its protected by you.56

The identification between the sun and the praised one is ultimately defined in
the closing kharjah of this muwashsha:
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 wouldnt
have gone unnoticed by the audience at the time. As such, we have seen that a
merely erotic interpretation of Josephs 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
57

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

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