In the second half of the twelfth century CE, a Muslim preacher named ‘Alī b. Mahdī gathered a group of followers around him and conquered several districts in Yemen. In 1159 CE, he died and his son, Mahdī, succeeded him. Shortly afterwards, Mahdī’s younger brother, ‘Abd al-Nabī, assumed the leadership of the group and conquered all of Yemen except for ‘Aden. In 1173 CE, the ruler of Ṣan‘ā’ allied with the ruler of ‘Aden and together they held back ‘Abd al-Nabī’s army, which retreated to Zabīd. Later, in June 1174 CE, the Ayyūbīs conquered Yemen and ended ‘Abd al-Nabī’s rule.Footnote 1 Arabic sources describe ‘Abd al-Nabī as a strictly observant Muslim who severely punished any Muslim resisting his doctrine, and demanded that all Jews under his rule convert to Islam. Many Yemenite Jews complied with his edict, while others became less observant. Concurrently, an anonymous Jew in Yemen claimed that he was the Messiah and gained many followers.Footnote 2 Not knowing how to face these difficulties, R. Jacob b. Nathaniel al-Fayyūmī, the leader of the Jewish community in Yemen, sent a letter to Moses Maimonides to seek his guidance. In response, in 1172 CE, Maimonides sent him an epistle known as The Epistle to Yemen that addressed the vicissitudes that beset the Yemenite Jews, and refuted polemical arguments in favor of recognizing Muḥammad as a true prophet.
One of the crucial points in the Jewish-Muslim polemic that emerges from the events in Yemen is a debate over a traditional Muslim argument that Muḥammad was mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel. The claim was based on the following Qur’ānic verse: “Those who follow the messenger-prophet, the ummī,Footnote 3 whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel [...]” (Qur'ān [henceforth Q.] 7:157).Footnote 4 It, thus, followed, Muslim polemicists argued, that Jews and Christians should acknowledge Muḥammad as a true prophet.
Maimonides's answers in the Epistle indicate that Yemenite Jews had to contend with polemical claims about the truth of Islam, raised by an anonymous Jewish apostate, referred to by Maimonides as poshe‘a (lit. criminal).Footnote 5 This apostate challenged the Yemenite Jews by presenting quotes from the Torah that Muslims considered evidence, or dalā’il, of the future emergence of Islam and Muḥammad.
Although Maimonides considered the dalā'il to be ridiculous and as devices used by some Jewish apostates to endear themselves to the Muslims,Footnote 6 he found it necessary to refute them, apparently for two reasons. First, some Yemenite Jews were perplexed by the dalā'il, and second, some did consider Muḥammad a true prophet who had been sent to the Arabs,Footnote 7 a belief that probably increased their bewilderment.
Though scholars have disagreed on the identity of the apostate, based on Maimonides's polemical arguments, it seems that in Maimonides's mind the anonymous apostate in the Epistle was none other than Samaw'al b. Yaḥyā b. ‘Abbās al-Maghribī (1125–1175 CE). By implication, Maimonides was acquainted with Samaw'al al-Maghribī’s pamphlet, Ifḥām al-Yahūd (Silencing the Jews), and made reference to it. Still, this does not necessarily mean that the Jews of Yemen knew the Ifḥām al-Yahūd or that the dalā’il that R. Jacob presented to Maimonides were taken from this pamphlet. It is more likely that R. Jacob described the dalā'il in his letter to Maimonides, and the latter answered him in accordance with the representation of the dalā'il with which he was familiar from Samaw'al's pamphlet.
In 1898, Martin Schreiner suggested, without any real support, that the apostate referred to in the Epistle was Samaw'al.Footnote 8 His opinion was accepted by Salo W. Baron, also without research.Footnote 9 Samaw'al was a Jewish scholar, mathematician, and physician who converted to Islam in 1163 CE,Footnote 10 and immediately wrote a polemical anti-Jewish pamphlet, Ifḥām al-Yahūd,Footnote 11 in which he tried to prove that leaving Judaism was justified and that the Jews were ignorant, unreasonable, and inconsistent.
Abraham S. Halkin criticized Schreiner's proposal, and defined all attempts to identify the apostate as unworkable.Footnote 12 The apostate's identity, Halkin asserted, “is not known. As an apostate to Islam he evidently undertook to spread the new faith among his former coreligionists.”Footnote 13
The polemical use of dalā'il to which Maimonides responded does not suffice to prove that Samaw'al was the apostate at issue. After all, Halkin reasoned, many Muslim polemicists other than Samaw'al used the polemical arguments that Maimonides addressed in the Epistle.Footnote 14 Other scholars have deferred to Halkin on this issue,Footnote 15 and set aside the question of the apostate's identity. Some, naturally, have considered him to be a local Yemenite Jew who converted and disseminated pro-Islamic propaganda among the Jews.Footnote 16
Halkin's point about the widespread polemical use of dalā’il is correct. Dalā'il were cited in earlier polemical works, such as those of ‘Abd Allāh b. Muslim b. Qutayba (d. 889 CE) and Abū Ḥātim Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān al-Rāzī (d. 933 CE). These previous works, however, did not quote biblical verses directly; they simply paraphrased them, sometimes in the service of their arguments. In contrast, Samaw'al treated these verses more extensively.
Furthermore, before Samaw'al, only one systematic polemical work had been written against the Jews and Judaism: The Refutation of Ibn al-Naghrīla the Jew, may Allāh curse him (al-Radd ‘alā Ibn al-Naghrīla al-Yahūdī la‘anahu Allāh) by Abū Muḥammad ‘Alī b. Aḥmad b. Ḥazm al-Andalusī (994–1064 CE).Footnote 17 In it, Ibn Ḥazm took a methodical scholarly approach to the Bible to prove the “falsification” (taḥrīf) charge against the Jews in detail.Footnote 18
According to Halkin the reason why it was unlikely that the apostate was Samaw'al was because Samaw'al had never set foot in Yemen.Footnote 19 Yet, Samaw'al did not have to be physically present in Yemen for Yemenite Jews to be exposed to his pamphlet. In fact, Samaw'al himself claimed in his autobiography that he had made numerous copies of his pamphlet and that its fame was widespread.Footnote 20 Some copies, thus, may have reached Yemen.
Most convincingly, there are unique characteristics in Samaw'al's pamphlet that distinguish it from other polemical works. For example, Samaw'al discussed the dalā'il with a much higher degree of sophistication than any other polemicist, including his possible source of inspiration, Ibn Ḥazm. And when Maimonides responded to the dalā'il, he provided well-conceived answers that sufficed to counter such sophisticated arguments.
Muslim polemicists had many dalā'il in their arsenal, yet Samaw'al mentioned only three. He devoted three consecutive chapters in his pamphlet to this subject (discussing one of them in each chapter). Maimonides also discussed these three dalā'il in The Epistle to Yemen in sequence. Samaw'al's arguments and the unique characteristics that distinguish them from the contents of previous polemical pamphlets are presented below, followed by Maimonides's answers, demonstrating that he was directly refuting Samaw'al's arguments.
Deuteronomy 18:15/18
In the ninth chapter of Silencing the Jews, titled “An account of the verses and allusions in the Torah that refer to the prophethood of our master Muḥammad the chosen—may Allāh pray over him and grant him peace,” Samaw'al argued that Deuteronomy 18:15/18 hinted at Muḥammad's future arrival. He cited the verse in Hebrew letters and then explained its meaning in Arabic:
They [i.e., the Jews] cannot deny this verse from the second portion of the fifth book of the Torah:Footnote 21 נָבִיא אָקִים לָהֶם מִקֶּרֶב אֲחֵיהֶם כָּמוֹךָ אֵלָיו יִשְׁמָעוּן. Meaning: I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee; in him they shall believe. This certainly is an allusion to the fact that they shall believe in Muḥammad.Footnote 22
Halkin justifiably noted that this was one of the main arguments used by Muslim polemicists.Footnote 23 Yet, while other Muslim polemicists simply mentioned this verse asserting that it referred to Muḥammad,Footnote 24 Samaw'al went further by trying to refute a Jewish counterargument to the Islamic commentary on Deuteronomy 18:18, according to which the words “from among their brethren” referred only to Jews.Footnote 25 To reject it, Samaw'al turned to another biblical verse (Deuteronomy 2:4) to support the claim that Deuteronomy 18:18 presaged Muḥammad's arrival. Since the Torah called the children of Esau brothers, Samaw'al argued, we should also consider the children of Ishmael, from whom Muḥammad descended, the brothers of the children of Israel. If so, Deuteronomy 18:18 may be applied to Muḥammad:
Should they [i.e., the Jews] say: The text states, “from among their brethren,” and it is unusual for our Scripture to refer to non-Israelites as your brethren, we would say: Ay, it says in the Torah your brethren the children of Esau, namely in the first portion of the fifth book: אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים בִּגְבוּל אֲחֵיכֶם בְּנֵי-עֵשָׂו הַיֹּשְׁבִים בְּשֵעִיר [Deuteronomy 2:4]. Meaning: Ye are to pass through the border of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and do not covet any of their lands. Now if the children of Esau were brethren to the children of Israel because Esau and Israel were sons of Isaac, then the children of Ishamel are likewise brethren to all the progeny of Abraham.Footnote 26
Maimonides provided several counterarguments to the Islamic claim that Deuteronomy 18:15/18 referred to Muḥammad. One of them seems to demonstrate that he was responding directly to Samaw'al. If taken together with the sequence of verses in which Deuteronomy 18:15/18 were embedded, Maimonides argued, this verse could not be cited as proof of an allusion to Muḥammad in the Bible because it was taken out of context.Footnote 27 Deuteronomy 18:15, he continued, started with “in your midst” (mi-kirbekha), which meant that future prophets sent to foretell what would happen to Israel would live close (karov) to them, “in their midst,” so that they would not have to search for them and “travel to distant parts.”Footnote 28
Explaining the phrase, “from among your brethren like myself” (mi-kirbekha me-'aḥeikha kamoni), Maimonides emphasized that the verse spoke about Jews, and rejected the possibility that it referred to any of the descendants of Esau, or Ishmael. The very mention of Esau and Ishmael is a rejection of the kind of analogy that Samaw'al presented:
Moreover, He [Moses] conveys another notion, namely, that in addition to being near you and living in your midst, he will also be one of you, an Israelite. The obvious deduction is that you shall be distinguished above all others by the sole of possession of prophecy. The words “like myself” were specifically added to indicate that only the descendants of Jacob are meant. For the phrase “from among your brethren” might have been misunderstood and taken to refer also to Esau and Ishmael, since we do find Israel addressing Esau as a brother, in the verse: “Thus says your brother Israel” [Numbers 20:14].Footnote 29
According to Halkin, “Samaw'al argues that the words ‘your brethren’ may well apply to an Arab, supporting himself by the phrase: Your brethren the Children of Esau” (Deuteronomy 2:4).Footnote 30 Halkin seems to have missed the correspondence between Samaw'al's argument and Maimonides's reply.
Genesis 17:20
In the tenth chapter of his pamphlet, titled, “The allusion to his [i.e., Muḥammad's] name in the Torah,” Samaw'al argued that Muḥammad's future arrival was implied in Genesis 17:20, “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly (bi-me'od me'od).”Footnote 31 Since the verse started with a direct reference to Ishmael, and bi-me'od me'od in gematria (the numerology of Hebrew letters) is ninety-two, as is the name Muḥammad, Samaw'al considered this verse further evidence in the Torah of the future emergence of Muḥammad.Footnote 32
Samaw'al appears to be familiar with a Jewish response to the foregoing Islamic commentary, according to which one cannot deduce a proof of prophethood from the matching of the gematria of some word, or words, in the Torah to a person's name. The Jews, Samaw'al claimed, argued that this technique was problematic because one could find many such matches (e.g., Zayd, ‘Amr, Khālid, and Bakr).Footnote 33 Therefore, Samaw'al inferred, it was not by chance that the verse under discussion—a divine promise to Abraham on how great and blessed Ishmael was to become—contained the words bi-me'od me'od, that clearly referred to Ishmael's offspring, namely Muḥammad.Footnote 34
Maimonides emphatically refuted Samaw'al's explanation of Genesis 17:20. This verse, he claimed, could not refer to prophecy but only to the number of people who would descend from Ishmael. First, the phrase “a great nation” (goy gadol, Genesis 17:20) implied neither prophecy nor a law, but merely a multitude. Similarly, the phrase bi-me'od me'od simply signified a very large number. If the Lord wished to allude to Muḥammad, then the verse would read, “and I shall bless him bi-me'od me'od.” And since the verse read, “I shall multiply him (ve-hirbeti 'oto) bi-me'od me'od,” it could only denote an increase in numbers.Footnote 35
Countering Samaw'al's veneration of Ishmael, Maimonides went on to demonstrate how other verses in Genesis emphasized that Abraham's heir, the one who would continue his line and his law, was Isaac.Footnote 36 Ishmael, said Maimonides, “is regarded as an adjunct and appendage in the blessing of Isaac, for God says: ‘And also (ve-gam) of the son of the bondwoman (ben ha-’ammah) will I make a nation (goy), because he is thy seed'” (Genesis 21:13). Thus, while Samaw'al had claimed that Genesis 17:20 referred to the greatness of Ishmael and his descendants, Maimonides cited another verse that explained that Ishmael and his descendants were only to increase in number. Maimonides adds that Ishmael was secondary to Isaac, Abraham's true heir and successor in the path of truth, i.e., Judaism.Footnote 37 Doing so, Maimonides sought to thwart any effort to derive Muḥammad's prophetic status from Jewish Scripture.
Maimonides's final refutation of the Islamic argument regarding the phrase bi-me'od me'od went beyond the Hebrew Scriptures. Such an argument explicitly contradicted the Qur'ān itself, which spoke about a messenger named Aḥmad and not Muḥammad;Footnote 38 Maimonides probably refers to the following Qur'ānic verse:
And when Jesus, son of Mary, said: O children of Israel, surely I am the messenger of Allāh to you, verifying that which is before me of the Torah and giving the good news of a messenger who will come after me, his name being Aḥmad. But when he came to them with clear arguments, they said: This is clear enchantment (Q. 61:6).
The gematria of Aḥmad, Maimonides claimed, was fifty-three; therefore, it does not correspond to the count of bi-me'od me'od.Footnote 39
Deuteronomy 33:2
In the first part of the eleventh chapter of Samaw'al's pamphlet, titled, “On the passage alluding to the prophethood of Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad,” Samaw'al referred to Deuteronomy 33:2: “And he [i.e., Moses] said, the Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with then thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” This verse, he claimed, alluded to Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad: Sinai to Moses, Seir to Jesus, and Paran to Muḥammad.Footnote 40
Paran appeared in other Muslim polemical works, which simply associated Paran with Mecca, without explanation for this connection. Al-Rāzī, for example, wrote in connection with this verse: “[The phrase] and his illumination [came] from Mount Paran [refers to] the arrival of Muḥammad pbuh from Mecca because Paran is Mecca” (wa-iḍā’atuhu min jabal Fārān hiya ẓuhūr Muḥammad (ṣ) min Macca li-anna Fārān huwa Macca).Footnote 41
In contrast, Samaw'al strove to prove that the word Paran referred to Muḥammad. According to the Torah, he reasoned, Ishmael lived in Paran (Genesis 21:21), and Ishmael's descendants lived in Paran as well. Since Muḥammad was one of Ishmael's descendants, he also lived in Paran. Plainly, then, Paran was Mecca. And if Paran was Mecca, then Deuteronomy 33:2 clearly referred to the future rise of Muḥammad.Footnote 42
In Jewish sources Paran was sometimes linked to Mount Sinai and Samaw'al focus on the question of the meaning of Paran may have been a response to Jewish sources that addressed the place, such as a passage in the Babylonian Talmud (B. Shabbat 89a–b) and perhaps Sa‘adiah Gaon's (882–942 CE) commentary on Deuteronomy 33:2 in The Book of Beliefs and Opinions. In both sources it is argued that Paran is a synonym for Mount Sinai.
In B. Shabbat 89a–b, one of the sages asked R. Kahana: “Hast thou heard what Mount Sinai [connotes]?” Several opinions are offered by the talmudic sages in the ensuing discussion.
R. Jose son of R. Ḥanina said: It has five names: The Wilderness of Ẓin, [meaning] that Israel was given the commandments there (niẓtavu); The Wilderness of Kadesh, where the Israelites were sanctified (nitkadshu); the Wilderness of Kedemot, because a priority (kedumah) was conferred there; the Wilderness of Paran, because Israel was fruitful (paru) and multiplied there; and the Wilderness of Sinai, because hatred (sin‘ah) toward idolaters descended thereon. Whilst what was its [real] name? Its name was Ḥorev. Now they disagree with R. Abbahu, for R. Abbahu said: its name was Mount Sinai, and why was it called Mount Ḥorev? Because desolation (ḥurbah) to idolaters descended thereon.
In the third chapter of The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Sa‘adiah Gaon debated at length the Islamic doctrine of abrogation of the Torah (naskh),Footnote 43 claiming that Seir and Paran were additional names for Mount Sinai. The implication of Sa‘adiah's commentary, asserting the meaning of Paran as Mount Sinai, is that it refuted the claim that Deuteronomy 33:2 referred to the future prophecy of Muḥammad and that Paran was Mecca. According to Sa‘adiah:
These three [i.e., Sinai, Seir, and Paran] are all of them names applied to Mount Sinai. The reason for its having these different appellations is that whenever a mountain extends toward several countries, its nomenclature is divided according to the names of these countries, each division bearing the name of the country lying opposite to it. Just as one and the same sea acquires from the countries (buldān) bordering it many names corresponding to that of each adjacent country, so is Mount Sinai a mountain opposite the lands of Sinai, Seir, and Paran called by the names of all three because it stands on something resembling a straight line.Footnote 44
Unlike earlier Jewish thinkers, Maimonides attacked the argument that Deuteronomy 33:2 hinted at Muḥammad's future prophecy differently. At first, he skirted geographical definitions and focused instead on the timing of events. He contended that the Islamic argument regarding the phrase “He appeared from Mount Paran” was invalid because the word “appeared” (hofi‘a) was given in the past tense, and not a future tense that would have implied a prophecy.Footnote 45 Thus, since it was Moses who uttered this verse, and since Moses predated Muḥammad, this verse had nothing to do with Muḥammad, who was to appear in the future.
Contradicting Sa‘adiah Gaon's explication, Maimonides then offerred another explanation for the appearance of these three names in Deuteronomy 33:2, a syntactic interpretation that combined sequence with geography: The Lord descended gently, occupying the top of one mountain and then moving to another until coming to rest on Mount Sinai.Footnote 46 One may infer from this that Seir and Paran were mountains close to Sinai; thus, Paran cannot be Mecca.
Further Evidence that Maimonides was familiar with Samaw'al's pamphlet
The Epistle to Yemen and the topic of the dalā'il were not the only areas where Maimonides countered Samaw'al's pamphlet. He also did so in his Mishneh Torah. In one of the chapters of his pamphlet, Samaw'al claimed that not only did the Jews expect the Messiah (al-qā'im)Footnote 47 to arrive, but they also believed that once the Messiah moved his lips and prayed, all the other nations would die and only Jews would remain in the world, adding that the Jews expected to enjoy sovereignty in a world emptied of all other nations.Footnote 48 He then claimed that the Jews accepted the parables (amthāl) of the prophets literally, overlooking their spiritual meaning. To support his claim, Samaw'al cited Isaiah 11:7 (“And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox”), mockingly arguing that the Jews were literally waiting for lions to eat straw, following lions into their dens and throwing straw in front of them to see if they would eat it, for this was a known sign of the coming of the Messiah.Footnote 49
The twelfth chapter of The Laws of Kings and Their Wars in Maimonides's Mishneh Torah seems to offer a response to Samaw'al's arguments. In the first law of the chapter, Maimonides stated that the nature of the world would not change in the days of the Messiah and that the world would continue according to its current patterns. He then explicitly clarified the meaning of Isaiah 11:7, the very verse that Samaw'al accused the Jews of understanding literally instead of allegorically. “Do not presume,” Maimonides wrote, “that in the Messianic age, the nature of the world will change or there will be innovations in the work of creation. Rather, the world will continue according to its pattern.”Footnote 50 Indeed,
Though Isaiah [11:6] states: “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat,” these [words] are a metaphor and a parable. The interpretation of the prophecy is as follows: Israel will dwell securely, together with the wicked gentiles who are likened to a wolf and a leopard, as in the prophecy [Jeremiah 5:6]: “a wolf from the wilderness shall spoil them and a leopard shall stalk their cities.” They will all return to the true faith and no longer steal or destroy. Rather, they will eat permitted food, be at peace with Israel, as [Isaiah 11:7] states: “the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” Similarly, other Messianic prophecies of this nature are metaphors. In the Messianic era, everyone will realize which matters were implied by these metaphors and what allusions they contained.Footnote 51
As to the fate of the other nations, the seventh law in chapter 12 of the Mishneh Torah was clear. The other nations would remain in the world and the Jews had no intention or desire to enslave them, or to have sovereignty over the world. “The sages did not yearn for the Messianic era,” Maimonides stated, “in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, [they desired] to be free [to involve themselves] in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances so that they would merit the World to Come as explained in Laws of Repentance (hilkhot teshuva).”Footnote 52
Conclusion
Maimonides's responses to the dalā'il in The Epistle to Yemen seem to match Samaw'al's sophisticated polemic, and advanced manner of presentation, which differed markedly from that of previous Muslim polemicists. In addition, his statements in the Mishneh Torah seem to respond to Samaw'al's polemical points.
Both Samaw'al's and Maimonides's multilayered arguments seem to reflect the back-and-forth of Muslim–Jewish polemic that took place in prior centuries as Muslim polemicists presented arguments and Jews responded to them. Samaw'al responded to the Jewish responses and, finally, Maimonides responded to Samaw'al.
Sarah Stroumsa has argued that the image of Ibn al-Rāwandī influenced Maimonides in his shaping of the image of Elisha b. Abuyah the heretic (zindīq), and that Maimonides used the same method with Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (865–925 CE), who became his archetypal heretic.Footnote 53 Arguably, the same thing happened with Samaw'al and the apostate: Maimonides was familiar with Samaw'al's pamphlet and had Samaw'al in mind when invoking the term poshe‘a. R. Jacob described the dalā’il in his letter to Maimonides, who answered him according to the version of the dalā'il with which he was familiar, that is, Samaw'al's pamphlet.Footnote 54
