Book Description

Moses ben Abraham Darʿī, born in Alexandria into a family of Moroccan Jewish immigrants, lived in Egypt in the middle of the twelfth century. Though he visited Damascus and Jerusalem, he spent most of his professional life as a physician and poet in the Karaite community of Fusṭāṭ-Cairo. This study offers an annotated edition of secular poems taken from the earliest manuscript, NLR Evr. I 802, dated to the fifteenth century. The Hebrew text and Judaeo-Arabic heading of each poem are provided in the original order attested in the manuscript. The introduction to this edition seeks to evaluate Darʿī’s poetry in the light of the Andalusian-Hebrew poetical tradition and within the context of Hebrew literary activity in the Muslim East. “This learned book displays sound, rigorous scholarship in the best tradition of the philological-historical method... It also provides solid ground for further work by scholars with different agendas, different scholarly interests and different methodologies in the study of medieval Hebrew poetry. On all accounts, it is a welcome and most valuable addition to the field.” Esperanza Alfonso, CCHS-CSIC "Yeshaya's work is an excellent contribution to the study of both medieval Hebrew poetry and Karaitica, showing Darʿī to be a central representative of Hebrew poets writing in the Muslim East and, most importantly, a charming author, whose Karaiteness only adds to the attraction." Riikka Tuori